We began our journey into raising aspirations and developing a careers related curriculum for our children back in 2016. We strived to prepare our children for the wider world of work through organising a range of exciting opportunities for them, including a visit to a power station, a trip to BAE Systems and the chance to participate in engineering workshops at a local training centre. We fostered positive links with our local businesses, and through sponsorship, we bought an electric kit car, which the children built with support from engineering apprentices. The children then raced the car in the Greenpower Goblin Car Race in Hull in 2017, winning overall. It was from this point that we looked into how we could include all these important skills within our wider curriculum and find some way of teaching the children the basic skills in a meaningful context with measurable targets. After much research, we were lucky to find Skills Builder online and we found that it was the perfect solution. We have since gone from strength to strength, embedding the 8 skills within our curriculum. Our children use the skills language within their every day learning and they love completing the projects.
Being part of the Accelerator programme, we have been able to evidence and demonstrate the skills provision within our school. Skills Builder has provided the framework and support needed to achieve success in the teaching and the practising of the skills. It has given us the tools required to ensure that we are giving our children the skills needed to be successful and prepare them for their next steps and future working life. It has helped us to raise children's aspirations and academic performance by helping them understand the link between what they learn in school and the wider world. The projects have provided the exciting context to hook the children into their learning. The resources have been invaluable for staff and they have grown in confidence. They have started to adapt and use the resources in a more tailored way to suit the different needs of their children. The children have become more confident in talking about the skills and they have been able to transfer these skills in different contexts. Recently, during our careers fair, they showed excellent speaking and listening skills, when interacting with visitors from a range of ages and a variety of jobs. The children are excited and enthused whenever we completed our skills learning, which is a testament to the success of the programme.
Our pupils have many exciting experiences which bring the skills into the context of real life. We recently held a careers fair, when 30 members of our wider community came into school to discuss their jobs and career paths with our children from Y2 to Y6. It gave them an insight into a range of jobs: engineering, the NHS, police force and many more. We also had four visitors who used to attend our school previously., which was good for our children to see. The children used lots of the skills during the day and our visitors all commented on how well the children had spoken and listened with confidence. We also completed Operation Moonbase and Crash Landing as whole school projects. We work with local businesses to support our electric car, though sponsorship. When we invite visitors into school, we make sure that we link the skills to their jobs.
Our next steps are to continue to embed the skills throughout the curriculum and ensure that the skills are used consistently within our rewards system - linked to dojo points. We are looking at using the skills resources with our Pupil Premium children, to support groups with aiming high and staying positive, as this has been identified as being a barrier to their learning. We hope to make more use of the parent hub for homework and reinforcing the skills at home. We will be completing MTPs with the skills identified to ensure that the skills are being reinforced within purposeful contexts.
