Skills Builder

This content was written by

Buckden CofE Primary School

Context

Buckden CE Primary Academy is a church school in a semi-rural setting. We have written our bespoke School Curriculum around the seventeen Sustainable Development Goals with a view to prepare our children for their future. We recognised that this was a knowledge rich curriculum and needed the balance of skills included as we were aware that there was a request from industry that this was essential for our future workforce.

Overall impact

The Accelerator programme has had a big impact on the whole school, as it has really helped us to embed the skills builder into the whole curriculum and wider school life, as having the reviews with Bethan, breakfast meetings have been full of great ideas that we have been able to bring to our school. I think the highlight has been the skills builder champions as they have been able to talk so eloquently about the skills that they see in their classroom, especially on project days but more importantly in everyday lessons and experiences and how they are working to improve them. We have a new Home School Hub and our pastoral team are helping to spread the word and direct the parents towards the homezone. In our new parents evenings I have a slot now, so I can talk about skills builder with parents as their children start. I feel that it is embedded in our school but there will always be areas to improve.

Keep it simple

We began the year with a training session for all staff including teaching assistants, as we wanted to ensure that the language of skills builder was being used across the school. We have also continued to direct parents to the Home Hub via our newsletter. Classes have the posters up in the classrooms that have the descriptions. Teachers use the icons beside the learning intention when delivering a lesson and refer to the skills they will need to use. We have created assessment sheets to allow teachers to acknowledge when the children are achieving by issuing certificates in assemblies. We have uploaded all the skills builder steps with the breakdown onto the assessment system Insight we use, so that every individual child is assessed against each skill. We introduced Skills Builder to our reports to parents last year and reported on three to five focus skills but this year we have expanded to report on all skills for all children, which has been welcomed by both parents and teachers.

Start early, keep going

We introduced the floor books in every year group to help the children both recognise the skills they have and those that they are improving. The floor books will move up with them as a year group allowing them to reflect on what they have achieved. We have a minimum of 2 skills builder student champions in each class who look out for ways in which they see and can acknowledge when skills are being used well. The assessment sheets to allow teachers to acknowledge when the children are achieving the skill and by issuing certificates in assemblies there is acknowledgement and motivation. We report on the skills and we have directed parents to the Home zone and we are holding a webinar to further encourage our parents to engage with skills builder and the recording is on the Skills Builder section on our website.

Measure it

We have uploaded all the skills builder steps with the breakdown onto the assessment system Insight we use, so that every individual child is assessed against each skill. We introduced Skills Builder to our reports to parents last year and reported on three to five focus skills but this year we have expanded to report on all skills for all children, which has been welcomed by both parents and teachers. We have used the Hub Report too as an baseline assessment of the whole class to know which particular skills we could focus on using the projects and short lessons.

Focus tightly

Teachers highlight in there planning books each day what skills they will be focusing on. We also use the projects termly to enhance our curriculum and the teachers will use projects that particularly address the skills they recognise through assessment that the children need to work on. We also held a whole school Challenge Day that was well received and classes visited each other to see all the amazing creations. As all the children had attempted the challenge at their level they were able to recognise the level of skill that had been put in to each project.

Keep practising

Each year group do a skills builder project every term which is built in to our curriculum. We have held a Challenge Day which was really enjoyed by all the pupils and staff and supported by the parents with resources. In all the extra curricular clubs that we put on as a school we advertise the skills that will be a focus during the club. We also have a pastoral lead who uses the language and essential skills to help those children who are struggling with school life. I meet the skills builder champions once a half-term for them to share their skills builder floor books and different ideas that they take back to their classes. Our Y6 children go on an Outdoor Education based residential and the staff use the skills builder language to get the children to consider what role they would be best at in the challenges.

Bring it to life

We have had a farmer in and different people from the services to speak to some of our younger classes about their professions this term and the skills that they use. We had planned to have an Aspirations Day which we hold bi-annually when we ask parents to come in and share their professions and the skills. Unfortunately, due to high Covid restrictions and high numbers locally this did not go ahead but we hope to do this next year. Enterprise week where the Year 6 children plan a fair and all the stalls and they consider their skills when thinking about which job they will have and how to best contribute. As part of our Science week we have an assembly where we have 8 parents attending and the parents will describe the skills they have to have to do their occupation and some of the knowledge that they have to have and the children have to guess their occupation, this helps them see that what they are learning and practicing will take them into their adult lives.

What's next

I would like to use next year to continue to embed skills builder even more. One of the ways is to move the floor books up with the cohort so they are able to reflect on the progress they have made and consider the next step. I will be planning to have an Aspirations Day so that we can really bring the skills to life and get the children to make the links with the wider world. I hope with the help of our new home hub launching that we can get more of our parents involved in understanding how they can help through using the home zone.

East of England

United Kingdom