Accelerator overview

What is the Accelerator Programme? 

The Accelerator is a year-long training and development programme. 

At the end of the first year you will have:

• An expert lead practitioner known as your ‘Skills Leader’
• A team of confident trained teachers
• Demonstrable learner progress in eight essential skills
• A Skills Builder Award in recognition of best practice 
  

How does the Accelerator programme work? 

Places are limited. You’ll join a cohort of just 200 UK schools. We’ll match you with a dedicated Skills Builder Education Associate who is a qualified teacher. Your programme will include Skills Leader and teacher training, peer learning opportunities, planning meetings, and a complete curriculum and assessment model for your learners. Plus access to a suite of online assessment tools and engaging resources that can be used to best meet the needs of your learners.

What could you do on an Accelerator programme?

Specialist settings utilise the programme to support existing curriculum plans, careers related learning strategies and school priorities. 

Skills Builder, at its best, is embedded throughout your ethos and practices: policies, staff training, the curriculum, assemblies, and so on. But that can take time, here are some ways others have got started. You might: 

• Use ready made, easy to access assemblies, posters and visual aids to introduce the skills with students. Start to use the icons in powerpoints to demonstrate to students when they are practising skills
• Use the Expanded Framework to structure your life skills lessons, helping learners apply the skills to everyday tasks
• Link the skills to your existing projects, or use project-based learning resources from the Skills Builder Hub to explicitly teach and practise the essential skills
• Set individual skill and step targets for learners in support plans, and communicate the next steps with parents/carers during review meetings
• Target specific groups of learners as a pilot group
• Include the skills within your current Preparation for Adulthood provision
• Embed the skills into your setting’s existing reward policy, recognising and rewarding the application of essential skills using stickers, certificates and badges.