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Park Hill Junior School is a 3 form entry Junior school in South London with families and children from a range of cultures and backgrounds. This is our second year of using the Skills Builder programme. We initially started the programme as it linked with one of our school aims of preparing children with knowledge and skills for their future. We have continued the programme this year to build on our work from last year as we really saw the benefit it gave our pupils as they learnt and practiced the essential skills which they will use in the next stages of their education and in their future careers.
Overall impact
As this is our second year, we have been able to tweak how we use Skills Builder to ensure that it works well for our children and staff. The language of the essential skills is used regularly by different members of the community and is embedded within our school days rather than as an add on. Being able to focus on the steps has helped our children really understand how to be successful within a skill and allows them to practise and show their understanding of the skill and step. Listening to feedback and making changes has been really helpful. Having each year group focus on 4 skills (which they teach explicitly) has enabled teachers to ensure the skills and steps are embedded and linked rather than them rushing through the skills. Our challenge day has been a highlight with one child saying that it was their favourite day of the year. Having the staff dress up and become the characters for the day really brought it all to life. Working with our Education Associate and listening to webinars about cognitive load helped me to make changes and also explain the progress and assessing system to the staff.
Keep it simple
We have built on this principle and our vision, which was shared with our staff and Governors, was for all members of our community to use the language of the essentials skills. We focused more on our wider community this year by presenting information about Skills Builder to our parents at welcome meetings and to our Governors. We also had our Education Associate speak to our support staff about the skills and language and how they can incorporate this into the activities they lead within the school. We have continued to display the skill icons linked to our 5R learning behaviours and classes also now display the current skill and step they are working on on their class board so that all members of staff can refer to the skill and step in a range of lessons. We have fine-tuned our reward process so that certificates now show how the children have progressed and shown a particular skill, with only a few children achieving this in a month which has given more value to the rewards.
Start early, keep going
All classes teach short lessons from the Skills Builder Hub either weekly or fortnightly. This year, years 3 and 5 looked at the same 4 skills and year 4 and 6 focused on the other 4. Teachers can then focus on 1 of the skills for longer and it gives the children an opportunity to come back to specifically looking at a skill in another year. Year groups decided which of the 4 skills they would teach when, based on either their assessment of the skills or how it would link to their curriculum. For example in year 5, they did Creativity in the summer term with their Ancient Greek theme as they completed lots of DT and art activities. As well as teaching 4 specific skills in the year, staff refer to and link any of the skills to their lessons. E.g. year 5 might not specifically teach Teamwork lessons but will still apply this skill in PE lessons. Parents are informed of which skill their children are focusing on in our monthly newsletters and examples of activities from the Skills Builder Homezone are linked.
Measure it
We have focused more on the benchmarking and reassessing of the skills this year. The year groups decided which of the 4 skills they would start with by benchmarking their classes and seeing a pattern within the year group. Staff were introduced to the progress structure in a meeting and clarification of good progress within the year was given. Staff have also seen their class progress from the HUB report and the graph visuals. As we are focusing on skill steps this year, teachers are able to see the progress made by their class as they move from one step to another or see that now, after a few weeks of practising and embedding the step, most or all of the class complete the step rather than none or some at the start. Benchmarking has enabled the teachers to chose the specific step their class needs to work on. This is also helpful for transition meetings where teachers can explain if the class need support with any of the essential skills with their new teacher next year.
Focus tightly
To build on from last year, this year classes looked at specific steps within the skill. These steps are displayed on their class boards and so any adult working within the classroom can refer to this step with the class and praise those who are demonstrating it or remind and focus those who may need more support. The Hub short lessons are used either weekly or fortnightly in a class and the staff have been directed to other resources too which can help the children build on the skill and step e.g. passports and assemblies. The step is applied to appropriate lessons from across the curriculum. Teachers also use the skill icons on their planning slides to show where children can practise and build on the 8 essential skills.
Keep practising
The essential skills are interwoven within our curriculum. They are included on our termly curriculum maps so staff, children and parents are aware of when and in which subject they are practising and applying the skills. Skill icons are also displayed on planning slides and where possible, the current skill step they are working on (displayed on the board), is referred to in lessons. The skills have also been included during our special days or weeks e.g. during STEAM week children applied their problem solving and creativity skills to a range of activities and during Health and Sports Week, Teamwork and Staying Positive were applied. The skills and the language of them are also referred to in our assemblies where children recognise how other people have used the skills in their own lives. The companies that run our afterschool clubs were sent information about Skills Builder and asked to use this language with our children. The drama club gave us positive feedback about this.
Bring it to life
We have focused on this principle more this year. Year 6 took part in the Q&A sessions with employers (run by Skills Builder) and a Junior Citizenship Scheme event. Both of these enabled the children to discuss how the skills are used within different jobs. During our 'Inspire Me Day' we had members of the community discuss their jobs with the children and lead presentations/workshops. The guests were asked to refer to the skills they use in their jobs with a particular focus on Aiming High. The parents and volunteers included this language on their slides and in discussions and children were left inspired and informed as to how the skills apply to their future lives (which is one of our aims for our curriculum). The whole school also took part in the Crime Scene Challenge Day during STEAM week. Staff dressed up as the characters and children applied all the skills throughout the day to work out who committed the crime. The whole school was buzzing with energy that day!
What's next
Next year I would like to build on what has worked well for us and make changes to things which still require tweaking. As a school we are very flexible and want to continue to improve so know that not everything is set in stone, particularly if it is not working for our school. I would like to meet with children regularly next year to get their ideas and see what is working well for them. I would also like the staff to share good practise and learn from the successes of others. A lot of the changes we have made this year will stay as they have worked well for us and helped us to embed Skills Builder, especially keeping up with what we have done for principles 5 and 6 (as this was a focus this year). I would like to hear from teachers as to whether they think teaching 2 skills explicitly per year will be more beneficial to the children rather than the 4 we did this year as I know some year groups especially year 6 needed more time with certain skills.
