Stories from Accelerator: East Midlands

February 28, 2022

Applications for the Accelerator are now open. Find out more and apply here, and read on for some great stories from the programme...

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‍Our work in East Midlands

Over the last few years, there’s been some brilliant progress happening in schools and colleges in the East Midlands, where we work with more than 50 Primaries, Secondaries, Special Schools and Colleges.

High quality programmes that provide opportunities to boost students’ essential skills are recognised by Skills Builder Awards. Bronze, Silver, and Gold Awards are given to those modelling best practice in essential skills education by embedding our six principles:

In 2021, 302 schools and colleges achieved an Award across the UK. 90 of these chose to submit a Case Study. You can explore the full Case Study Showcase here, but here are just a few highlights…

Beacon Primary Academy opened in 2014 and is a one-form entry school.

‍“We wanted to get involved with Skills Builder as the main aim we have as a whole academy is to provide our children with the skills and knowledge that they need to enable them to achieve their goals in life. We knew that Skills Builder Accelerator would sit hand in hand with our curriculum intent and provide staff with the ability to really embed these skills into all aspects of school life so that they are ingrained into staff and pupils thinking.”

Grantham College is a further education college based in the town of Grantham, Lincolnshire, offering provision for students aged 16+. Explicit teaching of the essential skills takes place during weekly Careers and Employability lessons.

“Searching for high quality, relevant resources to include in our new programme, we discovered Skills Builder’s Essential Skills and their Accelerator programme. The Accelerator programme has helped us to transform our approach to the teaching of employability skills so that we have a far greater impact. Staff and students alike are now considering and reflecting on the skills much more fully and with a more forensic eye, using the clear descriptors on Benchmark and the Hub dashboard.

"Our highlights so far have included: students reciting the skills language when drafting cover letters in an English lesson, without any prompting; staff preparing students to complete a live brief with an employer and naturally including the skills in the preparatory work with students; apprentices surprising themselves at how their confidence in speaking grew at a Skills Summit with employees at Network Rail, and, the palpable revelation they experienced when they realised the skills relate to all professions; the pride on students’ faces when they receive an essential skills certificate; and finally, the enthusiasm our governors, all senior professionals who have worked in a variety of sectors, showed for building essential skills. “

The Skegness Academy is committed to providing high quality, relevant and contextualised careers education, advice and guidance in order to provide every child with the knowledge, skills and confidence to support them with their chosen career aspiration by going above and beyond the statutory requirement. The objective of the careers provision is to raise aspirations amongst pupils and support them to make informed decisions in every area of their education including during key transition stages by ensuring that careers education is embedded within all areas of both the national and hidden curriculum.

“I felt Skills Builder would enhance our programme delivered across the curriculum.Having the support from Emma at Skills Builder to the staff during the CPD sessions has also been really useful. We couldn't have done it without the Accelerator programme and on hand support from Emma. We want to continue with the Accelerator Programme for Year 2. We hope to build the programme into the curriculum more - embed what we have done this year. We're looking to work towards the Silver Award. We are going to stick with the same 4 skills that we've been working on so far.”

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About Accelerator

Skills Builder Accelerator is our flagship programme for schools and colleges. We work together with you to develop and implement a complete strategy for teaching essential skills in your institution, including training, support, tools, and resources, resulting in real impact for your students.

Interested? Find out more here, where you can download our prospectus. You can also check your eligibility to apply for a funded programme place here.

Programme places are limited and will be allocated in three rounds.