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Hartshill Academy is a mixed 11-16 academy located in the Hartshill area of Nuneaton made up of roughly 1000 pupils. At Hartshill Academy, our vision is that through excellent daily practices, kindness, gratitude and our HART values we will improve pupil achievement, develop character and create an academic culture with high aspirations for all. Our school HART values of Heart, Ambition, Respect and Tenacity underpin everything we do. We take time to reflect on our HART values and how we can develop each day to ensure we are always challenging ourselves to be even better today than yesterday. We strive to practice perfect in everything we do. We know that our daily practices become our habits, our habits become our character and our character is who we are. During the Covid-19 lockdowns, a large number of our pupils, especially those pupils currently in years 7-9, missed out on vital life experiences and social activities. With 40% of our pupils being classed as pupil premium, we identified Skills Builder as being an effective way of ensuring that all of our pupils across the entire school are able to have the opportunity to develop their basic and essential skills on a weekly basis, which is especially important for those pupils who may not have the chance to work on this outside of school. Developing our 8 essential Skills Builder skills was an easy way to let our pupils self reflect and improve, especially with skills such as teamwork, leadership and staying positive which they may have fallen behind on developing during lockdown and as a result of missing school years. Skills Builder links in strongly with our school values, as we know that practicing our essential skills can make us better people both today and in the future.
Overall impact
Taking part in the Skills Builder Accelerator programme this year has opened up chances and opportunities for our pupils to develop the essential skills that they require both in school and their day to day lives, and has already proved to be extremely effective. Our pupils are now able to prove that they have developed their listening skills through the use of open and closed questioning and body language, and are able to consider and act upon the positive and negative emotions of both themselves and their peers thanks to the staying positive skill. As a result of the Skills Builder programme, more and more staff members are now aware of their role in careers education across the school, and high quality conversations have been taking place between pastoral groups that reflect this. A number of the staff members who are involved in the programme this year have also volunteered to become careers ambassadors for the next academic year, showing that it has been a highly beneficial programme for staff development, as well as for pupil growth. Both staff and pupils have agreed that this programme has had a major positive impact on the way the school culture has changed overall in relation to the year groups involved, so we really hope to continue this momentum into the next academic year.
Keep it simple
All staff involved in Skills Builder have received training from our Skills Builder associate, covering the importance of essential skills, what Skills Builder is, any why it is important for our pupils. Staff then received additional in-house training on how the programme was going to be run during form time. An assembly was also delivered to pupils in years 7 and 8 before they begun, introducing the programme, the essential skills and why the skills are important in real life. Hartshill Academy have also combined what we believe are essential skills to the Skills Builder essential skills to create a new skills poster, containing the Skills Builder icons and terminology, which is now displayed around the school. We also have the Skills Builder Listening and Staying Positive posters displayed in all form rooms. We also have a Skills Builder icon on ClassCharts which adds value to the work pupils are doing, and communicates this back to parents.
Start early, keep going
Skills Builder is currently being used on a regular basis with years 7 and 8, with the hope that once these pupils have mastered an essential skill, they can take this with them throughout the rest of their school years and continue to practice what they have developed. However, as year 8 move into year 9, and year 7 move into year 8, they will continue with the Skills Builder programme to ensure their learning and development continues. The new year 7 starters in September will then start the Programme, and the cycle will continue. Pupils have a dedicated slot once a week during their form time to develop their knowledge of the chosen essential skill and to put what they have learned into practice to ensure that the pupils continue to progress. Parents have been involved with this through the use of ClassCharts, where parents are notified of any rewards their child receives, and in the case of Skills Builder, one completed skill step is worth 3 positive points on ClassCharts.
Measure it
At the start of the programme, pupils were given skills passports and completed a self-evaluation, giving themselves an honest score out of 10 for each skill step based on their confidence in meeting said skill step. This self-evaluation was then completed again at the end of the skills programme, which for Hartshill Academy was after step 10, for reflection of how each pupil has developed in the chosen essential skill, as well as to compare how much progress was made since the start. Form tutors were to go through one skill step a week with pupils, and pupils were to identify where they have met the step either individually or with peers. The form tutor was then to go around the classroom at the end of each session and sign off each pupil passport once complete. Once a skill step is achieved, this then gets input onto ClassCharts, which goes to the schools Careers Leader to allow them to see the progress of individual groups, and to see where any additional support may be required.
Focus tightly
Pupils in year 7-8 receive half an hour each week during form time to dedicate to Skills Builder. The first week of the programme is devoted to an introduction assembly, which shows pupils the importance of the programme and introduces them to the key terminology which will explicitly be used, and to give pupils chance to complete the self-evaluation. This gave form tutors a baseline of where their form group should start. All staff involved were trained on both the programme and the relevant tools that they would need, and staff were provided with a lesson PowerPoint each week which focused on 2 aspects of the specific skill step, taken directly from the Universal framework, with one activity linked for form groups to attempt during their dedicated Skills Builder time. This meant that each week, pupils would explicitly learn the context behind the skill step, practice using it and then identify where else they have demonstrated that they can use this step to complete their passports.
Keep practising
At the start of every lesson, a careers slide is displayed looking at key objectives and terminology, as well as any relevant career link for the topic. The careers slide also features the Hartshill and Skills Builder skills, such as listening, speaking and teamwork, pupils are to be made aware of which skills they will be working on during the lesson. Careers display boards can be found in every classroom and around the school, including Skills Builder posters, a display of our key skills and posters linked to the relevant subject. Pupils can practice the essential skills during their school days. For example, during form time, problem solving during maths, creativity during art, drama and music, teamwork in PE and speaking in French and English. There are also a number of extra-curricular activities available, such as the Duke of Edinburgh award, performing arts, music, sports clubs and the green council, as well as lesson 6 for year 11 pupils, promoting the skill of aiming high.
Bring it to life
Year 10 have mock interviews, where local employers, who are given a briefing sheet provided by Skills Builder beforehand, talk to pupils providing real-life experience, whilst referencing the 8 essential skills. Year 7 and 8 pupils attended a residential, with skills mentioned throughout the week, especially teamwork, leadership and aiming high. Pupils are encouraged to include something they did on the trip in their skills passports to link their work in school to their lives outside of school. Year 9 are taking part in the Duke of Edinburgh award, and also took part in vocational workshops, providing an opportunity to apply these skills to practical challenges, such as construction, hair and beauty, retail and catering. The Skills Builder skills are displayed during the schools careers fair, which is open to all pupils, parents and local employers. Year 7 pupils have visited Coventry University to encourage them to aim high at an early point during their school career.
What's next
Over the next academic year we are aiming to continue with the momentum that we built over the last 12 months, but to also open the programme up to all year groups across both key stages 3 and 4, as well as create a leadership programme where pupils can earn leadership points based on how many skill steps they can work towards and complete. The core pastoral and PSHE curriculum is to be completely re-written in time for Autumn term 1, with a big focus on the school values, and we strongly believe that by having each form group focus on one skill at a time on a weekly basis they will develop as human beings whilst also being able to prove that they can meet our school values of Hart, Ambition, Respect and Tenacity. To ensure that Skills Builder is fully embedded across the school, all staff will receive a training session at the start of the next academic year, focusing on what the programme is, how it will work and why it is so important that we as a school fully embrace it.
