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Woodlands School is a broad spectrum special needs school in Coleshill, North Warwickshire. The school caters for the needs of 200 pupils from Early Years/Foundation Stage to Key Stage 5 and beyond, including supported internships. We have been part of the Skills Builder Partnership for a number of years, we like to think that just as the Skills Builder has grown and developed, we have too. We originally became involved in the programme because we loved the ethos, skill language and resources. At Woodlands, we have a positive and aspirational goal to get as many people with learning disabilities into paid employment, as possible. At first, we were invested in building the skills for our older Key Stage 4 & 5 cohort. Our thinking has developed and we are now driving forward an ambition to build tangible and meaningful progress right from an early age. Our students and our school are now more involved in the teaching of essential skills than ever.
Overall impact
The Accelerator programme has been hugely beneficial for Woodlands School. The Skills Builder Partnership is not just a programme, it is a community within itself. We are building a community of like minded teachers at Woodlands, we share a purpose and are starting to really make the principles work for us and benefit outcomes for our student community. It has been refreshing and inspiring to see certain, similar classes, buddying up to help make assessments and lesson delivery fit for purpose. The impact has been that the students have a higher quality of teaching that is targeted and specific. We love the fact that the Skills Builder staff also welcome us into the community, this helps to support our delivery of the programme, become skilled practitioners and link with other schools - which is just amazing for whole school development and driving the programme forward in tried and tested ways. We are just starting on a planned process to involve parents with the essential skills too. Linking it with activities on Class Dojo as well as making a page on our school website has opened the door for questions and interest from our parents and carers. Some parents are now using the skills language at home too. The impacts of this for the students are huge; increased opportunities for learning and practising the skills, thus leading to higher levels of confidence and, in the long run, increasing their ability to cope with transition to college or supported employment. The highlight of the year has got to be our Employability Week. There was something for everyone, we even had students take over from SLT for the day and deliver the weekly staff briefing on Teams! Students loved dressing up and seeing their class projects through from start to finish. Everyone, teachers and pupils had a real sense of achievement and we all really felt the positive buzz in the air. Parents commented on how their children skipped out of the door to school and were happy to talk about their days.
Keep it simple
We have built awareness of the essential skills in a three staged approach. Firstly, getting our teachers to see the value of starting exploration of the skills from an early age. Teachers also needed to see that the programme can fit into the curriculum and outcomes for pupils with physical and mental learning difficulties too. Next, we passed the enthusiasm to the students through lessons, games and consistent use of the visuals and language to prompt consolidation in context. Lastly, we have shown our parents what Skills Builder is all about. Lockdown was beneficial to get this started and with our sixth form students, we piloted the use of Class Dojo to promote essential skills at home too. The trials were well received by the parents. We have added a designated section for Skills Builder under our parents and carers tab on the school website. Here we can keep the parents informed about what is going on in school, as well as promote the skills language and Skills Builder Home Learning Zone.
Start early, keep going
The academic year 2020-2021 has been significant for Woodlands School and we've begun to see a shift in mindset from the majority of our classroom staff. Staff understand that the essential skills are things that their pupils explore and encounter each day in natural play or social interactions. All staff in all classes, right from nursery age, now vocally highlight skills to learners, giving praise where it's due, raising enthusiasm. As a school we understand that these essential skills are progressive and must be built upon year on year in order to achieve the aim of independence or paid employment. Because of this success, senior leaders have agreed that we can include a mandatory set of circle time Skills Builder activities in the curriculum for Early Years / Foundation Stage, Key Stage 1 and Key Stage 2. Secondary Key Stage 3 students will have a mandatory 1 hour lesson of Employability per week, and Key Stage 4 & 5 students will continue to link Skills Builder to their whole curriculum and Preparing For Adulthood Framework.
Measure it
Our cohort of students is highly differentiated and naturally this means different approaches for understanding and assessing progress are used through school. All teachers have use of the Skills Builder Hub. Most classes enjoy using the baseline tool on the Hub. However, some classes, especially more sensory based groups, find the Skills Builder Assessment is limited for their learners. For these classes we take two essential skills at a time and focus on the use of language recognition. Teachers track students' understanding of the essential skills by linking learning with the Lueven Scale and Tapestry Observations. We are tracking how often the students get to explore the essential skills through the curriculum by adding specific Employability lessons to the long term plans. Then, within medium term plans, the language is highlighted so teachers can see at a glance what to promote in which context. We are tracking progression by linking the framework to individual learning objectives.
Focus tightly
Some teachers are now adding essential skills into pupils' Education and Health Care Plans (EHCP). EHCP targets are tightly linked to the Expanded Framework meaning differentiated and individual interventions can be planned and summative assessed using our EHCP tracker. Observation evidence is collected for target trackers and reviewed each half term. Some of our Key Stage 3, 4, and 5 students are even assessing themselves using Skills passports or feedback sheets; opening up discussions to enhance their teachers' understanding of both individual and whole group progression. At the start of the year, all staff were given flexibility to formatively assess groups using the Hub and to choose a skill to focus on as we recognise that student need varied significantly class to class. Now, Woodlands has a focus skill of the month so the whole school can work together to promote the same language at the same time. This is also promoted on the website for parents and guardians to support at home too.
Keep practising
At Woodlands the essential skills are practised and promoted every day. We started by using a structured approach, teaching the key skills through the curriculum in upper secondary. This then filtered down to Key Stage 3. However, through the use of whole school focus weeks and all classes getting involved in projects, there is now a shared sense of purpose among the whole cohort of teachers at Woodlands. Teachers understand that the skills are used in all that we do as adults but also all that the students do as children. Because of this we now highlight the language with more passion and adaptability. We also do this through forest school, free play or social time and in core subject lessons too (e.g. problem solving in maths). Our students not only hear the language, they understand what that skill means and how to apply it. The aim is that students can pick out their own examples of when they have achieved or modelled the use of these essential skills, while aiming high for their own futures.
Bring it to life
At Woodlands we bring the essential skills to life in literally everything. The language is used in context which allows effective modelling from adults and plentiful praise to be given for pupil achievement or involvement. One area we have been successful in bringing Skills Builder to life is our vocational curriculum. We have linked progression through the universal framework to particular subjects such as; Enterprise, Pubic Services and work experience in the student-led Soup Kitchen. This year students have just started exploring the use of the interactive passports. Next year, the use of the passports will be spread through the whole Sixth Form Curriculum. We aim to bring it to life further by linking with other schools who are also using the Preparing for Adulthood Framework, embedding the essential skills with the wider world and daily living. For some pupils we have provided virtual employee encounters while for others we have linked skills to activities explored through the THRIVE curriculum.
What's next
This has been a challenging year with Covid and numerous lockdowns. Classes have not been able to communicate or connect on a face to face basis, which in any work or educational environment is tricky, with a cohort with special education needs, even more so! Despite this we have managed to come together as a staff team to share a common goal and build a whole school aspiration for progressive interaction with the Skills Builder Hub. Next year, we want to work on this through a targeted approach. We wish to continue working with others in the Skills Builder Partnership to make our provision even more accessible, to share ideas and assist in feeding back to assist with adapting or adding to the programme. We also plan to start making strong connections with other Skills Builder Schools to help link the Skills Builder Framework to other assessment criteria such as Preparing for Adulthood. We have also built the Framework into the curriculums and long term plans for the whole school and are excited to see how it develops.
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