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This is an academy within The Kemnal Academy Trust. The school has a specialised unit for a small number of pupils with autism spectrum disorder. Nearly all these pupils access the mainstream curriculum with support from this unit. Around 40% of pupils are eligible for the pupil premium grant. Most pupils are White British, although the school has a wide range of pupils from other ethnic backgrounds. Pupils enter the school in Year 7 with prior attainment well below the national comparator in reading and mathematics. A small number of pupils attend Crawley College or Brinsbury College as alternative learning providers. The college has a 6th Form and Chelsea Academy on site: most 6th formers take up places in Higher Education or with apprentice providers. There are a small but significant number of pupils Not in Education, Employment or Training (NEET) each academic year which the school try to support through bespoke CEIAG (Careers Education, Information, Advice and Guidance) inputs and 1:1 interviews with a trained independent advisor. CEIAG has been developed over the past 5 years with specific extra-curricular inputs but the Accelerator programme gave us the chance to identify and embed essential skills into the 'taught' subject curriculum and enable students and staff to see the importance of these skills, and to also show the connection and transferability of what was being done in class to what students would need to develop for their future success beyond exam grades. We had the opportunity to engage key members of staff as Careers Champions in subject areas and to offer the Skills Builder training as Continuing Professional Development to support them embedding this work.
Overall impact
I think that making the staff aware of the implicit and explicit links between the essential skills and the work they are doing in their day-to-day classroom learning experiences has been really valuable. There are clear plans in place for next year and we are also supporting that with inputs across the school via the tutorial programme so we are hoping that we will learn the foundation to build an ongoing dialogue around the essential skills students will use and develop, so that they become the norm as part of classroom discussions and experiences.
Keep it simple
We initially decided to start with each 'Careers Champion' looking at introducing one of the essential skills into their schemes of learning for a particularly targeted year group: we decided on Year 8. We then decided to do a whole-school launch via the tutorial programme to all students and it was going to be on the theme of staying positive. We also linked this to a launch of the hub with the parents via Google Classroom. We have subsequently done follow-up lessons with Year 7 and 8 on the skill of Listening.
Start early, keep going
When we returned from lockdown we asked the champions to explore which skills in their own curriculum areas were mirrored in the essential skills and asked them to plan materials for the academic year of 2021-2022. We also asked them to make sure that their department areas displayed the range of relevant poster materials and that the digital badging of Interactive Whiteboard lesson materials would be used to constantly signpost to all year groups the skills they were developing.
Measure it
We asked the champions to use the baseline assessment tool from the Hub resources and assess a group that they will have continuity with next year. We will then ask them to deliver their discrete skills inputs as part of their curriculum and assess the students again and also possibly engage the students in some self-assessment and review using the assessment tool. This will hopefully be done at different points throughout the coming academic year and then the data will inform which skills are highlighted and used in future lesson planning and on-going reviews of schemes of learning, to make sure the skills are kept alive and also that a range of the skills can be assessed.
Focus tightly
Again departments have been asked to immerse the skills into their general schemes of learning but also to augment this with clearly identified targeted lessons to teach specific and pertinent skills. It is hoped that the use of the language, terminology and signposting across the range of subjects will mean that students can see the transferability of the skills and also will allow for the coverage (in the long term) for all of them on a regular basis so that they become a 'natural' and organic part of the everyday lessons.
Keep practising
We will, as stated, give the students multiple chances across different curriculum areas to practise their essential skills but we will also make sure that any other extra-curricular inputs i.e. CEIAG (Careers Education, Information, Advice and Guidance) events, tutorial inputs and interactions with outside agencies and experiences are used to highlight, identify and promote the essential skills that they relate to and model for the students.
Bring it to life
Any employer engagement we have we will always make them aware of the language of the Skills Builder framework and ask them to try and mimic and support that language in any sessions they do. We will also emphasise and point out the link between the skills they are developing through the discrete and the implicit inputs and the engagement and immersion events/activities and opportunities we offer to them throughout their learning journey from Year 7 to 13.
What's next
We need to do an audit of the schemes of learning to check that the range of skills are coherently and consistently developed across the year groups and subjects: we need to ensure that we are not just covering skills in a tokenistic way but are embedding and building on each input to make sure that students can build their confidence in identifying, using and developing the skills to a sophisticated level.
