Schools and colleges working with The Skills Builder Partnership embed the eight essential skills into their provision. Research shows that these highly transferable skills improve students’ outcomes in education, the wider world and future careers. We celebrate best practice in essential skill provision through Bronze, Silver and Gold Skills Builder Awards.

A handful of schools and colleges go beyond best practice outlined in the Award Guide, to have an impact beyond their gates and into their community. This blog series celebrates our five Flagship schools’ fantastic work.

Dairy Meadow

Dairy Meadow Primary School is located in Greater London. They began their Skills Builder journey in 2015 and have worked incredibly hard to embed the essential skills in all areas of their provision. The aim has always been to support children's essential skills for every stage of their life and allow them to flourish. 

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Raising Awareness

The senior leaders have dedicated time and energy to explicitly referencing the eight essential skills in school policies and planning documents, in this way it’s just part of what they do. Dairy Meadow have also begun to develop ways to positively influence other schools in their borough.  

They always seek opportunities to raise awareness of the essential skills. Dairy Meadow’s Deputy Head spoke about how they embedded them into their provision at the local Headteachers conference and shared examples of best practice with over 70 headteachers.

Commenting on their experience of using the Skills Builder approach to incorporate the skills into teaching and learning, one member of the Senior Leadership Team said “I think it is perfect for nurturing the skills for later life and underpinning our curriculum with the eight key skills.”

Pupils at Dairy Meadow Primary were able to apply their essential skills in a ‘Local Heroes’ day where children got to meet individuals who have excelled in a chosen career. Guests included representatives from Amazon, SKY TV, Gunnersbury Park Museum and Border Force who encouraged pupils to develop their future aspirations.

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Reflections on the Year

We asked their Education Associate, Emma, to share her reflections on working with Dairy Meadow “Dairy Meadow worked incredibly hard to raise the awareness of essential skills and the value of developing them, by not only ensuring a comprehensive approach to teaching and practising essential skills with their learners in the classroom, but also influencing others to do the same. This included delivering parent & carer workshops to demonstrate how essential skills can be built at home, as well as regularly promoting the Accelerator programme to other schools in their region.”

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You can read more about Dairy Meadow on their case study here.

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