Stories from Accelerator: Wales

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...

‍

‍Our work in Wales

Over this year, there’s been some brilliant progress happening in schools in Wales, where we work with more than 12 Primaries, Secondaries, and All through schools including 1 Welsh medium school.

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…

Idris Davies, located in the South Wales Valleys, felt that the need to support their pupils in the building of their essential skills was paramount. In readiness for changes to the curriculum in Wales from September 2022, Idris Davies school is taking a proactive role in developing their own programme of study that really encapsulates the four purposes and the ideology of a skills and knowledge based curriculum. This is their first year on the programme, and they're working towards a Bronze Award.

‍This year they have been concentrating on the primary phase and Year 7. Teachers use resources from the Hub in form time to explicitly teach the essential skills. The science and technology AOLE have incorporated the essential skills language and icons into the new curriculum schemes of work to bring in continuity for the pupils. There are plans in place to extend this outwards to other AOLEs and other year groups have already made a start. Some year groups in the primary phase of the school have used the icons in their floor books to highlight the skills for their pupils.

‍The Skills Leader for the school has created the schools very own icons for the four core purposes. They have made posters showing the links between the essential skills and the four core purposes and displayed these in classrooms and around the schools TV screens.

‍

“It's nice to have a programme like this where there are a lot of resources and support available. It's enabled us to incorporate it easily into our new curriculum approach."

Hawthorn High School located in the South Wales Valleys were keen to have a common language around skills development. They wanted their use of Skills Builder and implementation of the new skills based curriculum to highlight the importance of developing essential, transferable skills that will form an invaluable personal toolkit for pupils as they move through their learning journey to employment and beyond. They're currently working towards Bronze on their first year.

‍They have been focusing on using the programme with Year 7 this year. They ran a Skills Builder project in Term 1 to immerse the pupils in a day of building their skills. The pupils have since had opportunities to keep developing their understanding of these skills in tutor sessions by using progression step targeted resources such as short lessons on the Skills Builder Hub. Finally, the Year 7 staff are highlighting opportunities across the curriculum for the students to practice these skills. The school's plan is to widen this to KS3 next year.

The Deputy Head and Skills Leader of Hawthorn told us: "My experience of Skills Builder this year clearly shows the synergy between the vision of the Core Purposes and the aims of the Universal Framework. This Framework is by no means a ‘bolt on’ or a tick box exercise. Its principles are intrinsically linked to effective Learning and Teaching and also Cwricwlwm i Gymru and the Framework offers a clear and continuous path to ensure progression across the essential skills. The Skills Builder Hub is very well resourced, easy to navigate and offers a wealth of interesting, age appropriate and engaging activities which are fully prepared for the teachers who have access to it. The Skills Builder Associate is also a very supportive element of the partnership, offering support and guidance when needed and helping to ensure a clear, strategic plan to improve and develop our skills provision, whilst also remaining very realistic when considering our busy school life and our priorities. As a school, we are working towards our Bronze Award and we will most certainly continue on the next phase of our partnership next year. I would highly recommend other schools considering forming a partnership with Skills Builder."

Bedwas Infants School are based in the South Wales Valleys. They felt that naturally as a foundation phase setting they already focus on skills development but were excited to have the Universal Framework to help them ‘bring things together’. This focus helps them as they strive to achieve a Bronze Award during their first year.

“We are focused around the 4 Core purposes; we are a school that places huge emphasis on wellbeing, empathy and collaboration.” The school plans this year to get creative and use the essential skills as a way of clearly communicating the four core purposes to their children.

The staff have been using the Universal Framework to assess where their learners strengths and weaknesses are. They have then been able to highlight the pupils use of the skills during their Wednesday enrichment sessions. Their next steps are going to involve identifying the use of the skills across the wider curriculum and extra-curricular activities.

‍

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.