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St Mary's is a one-and-a-half-form primary school located in Platt Bridge, Wigan. Our school has a higher-than-average number of pupils eligible for Pupil Premium and those with Special Educational Needs. At St Mary's, we want our children to develop the skills of an effective lifelong learner. We pride ourselves on being a friendly and approachable staff, with an open-door policy, everyone is welcome. We became involved in Skills Builder because we want to offer our children the best opportunities during their St Mary's learning journey and beyond. We believe that Skills Builder allows children to have real-life experiences of working in different environments which they would otherwise not have the opportunity of. Through the children being explicitly taught the skills they ultimately become more accomplished at utilising them in school and the wider world, become more knowledgeable learners, which positively impacts their progress and attainment.
Overall impact
The continued support from Skills Builder has made implementing the programme easier, our staff enjoy engaging in staff meetings and developing further. Teachers are confident teaching the skills and have been able to apply this in new ways in our curriculum. Pupils have enjoyed the opportunities such as virtual trips and project weeks and we feel this will support them as they move forward into high school and eventually, into their chosen career. Parents are aware of our involvement in Skills Builder and are regularly informed about the focus skills through Class Dojo posts.
Keep it simple
The eight skills are embedded into our bespoke curriculum. All medium- and short-term plans have a section for teachers to identify which skills they will be focusing on during the unit. The Skills Builder language is used consistently around school and children are rewarded by putting their name on the classroom Recognition Board when teachers see skills being used, whether that be in class lessons, outside during playtimes, in the dinner hall or walking through school. Each of our classrooms has a Skills Builder display which remains on the wall throughout the year. These display the 8 essential skills, allowing children to see their classes area of focus, celebrate the use of skills inside and outside of the classroom and display reflections linking to our skills. Our school also has a school Skills Builder display where the essential skills are displayed proudly for children, staff, parents and visitors to see.
Start early, keep going
At St Mary's, we introduce Skills Builder to our youngest children in Reception and continue to build upon the skills up to Year 6. We have found that the Hub has allowed all children to be able to access lessons and resources due to them being differentiated. Our Reception team have been pleased this year to see how many links they have made to the EYFS framework using our essential skills. We believe that because our children are exposed to the skills at such an early age, their understanding of what each skills means becomes part of their language and learning journey. By the time children are in Key Stage 2 they can add independent reflections to the class Skills Builder floor books, making them personal and unique to their class.
Measure it
Children are assessed by the class teacher using the Skills Builder Hub resources to support their decisions. Each class is assessed via the Hub half-termly to track skills progress, to celebrate successes and to highlight any skills which the children would benefit from further experience of before moving to their next class. The description of each step has made the process of assessment easier and less time-consuming. In KS2, we like to make sure children are aware of what step they are on for each skill and how they can move forward. Some classes use the 'we are here' or 'this is our starting point' and 'this is where we are aiming to be' approach and these can be found on classroom displays and class Skills Builder floor books.
Focus tightly
This year, each class has created their own long-term map for Skills Builder and they have chosen when in the year they will focus on certain skills. We have found that allowing teachers the opportunity to plan this for themselves, links between the skills and the curriculum happen naturally, children hear and use the language of the skills, and this has a positive impact on the children's learning and skill application. The resources on the hub are used in our foundation lessons so that children can see how skills link into everything that we do.
Keep practising
Our children have numerous opportunities to put the essential skills into practice. Every year, we have a project week where children come off our usual timetable and focus on their chosen Skills Builder project. Each key stage chooses an appropriate project, delivers it and then enjoys sharing what the children have learnt, the challenges they've faced and their successes with other classes. We ensure parents are aware of the skills we are focusing on during our project week by posting pictures and stories on our Class Dojos to show parents our achievements and developing skills. In upper key stage 2, our children have taken part in virtual trips. These trips are a great opportunity for pupils to see the skills in a real-life work environment and for them to hear about jobs they haven't heard of before. It was great to see how the children recognised the links made to the essential skills and how they were able to demonstrate their strong skill set to the employers.
Bring it to life
Skills Builder is at the core of learning and as our children become more confident, they are able to identify and discuss Skills Builder in real world contexts. Through our sporting and extra-curricular activities, children have been able to further develop their skills and have been able to see how skills are used by athletes, referees and judges. When we have visitors in school, children can identify the skills they've utilised within the lesson, and what skills they may need in their jobs or roles in the future. During the Year 6 residential, teachers and members of the residential staff spoke to the children about how their activities and challenges linked to the skills. The children were then able to reflect on the challenges they had faced and the skills they'd used to overcome them.
What's next
As a school, our next steps are to continue to use the Skills Builder Hub to its full potential by accessing Homezone and introducing a Skills Champion award each week in class. We also want to focus on fully integrating the Skills Builder skills into our new school project OPAL (Outdoor Play and Learning).
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