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ZŠ logopedická is a primary school situated in Hradec Králové in the Czech Republic. Our school provides learning environments to students with special educational needs, namely those with communication, language, and speech disorders. Currently, there are approximately 170 pupils aged 6 – 15 divided into 18 separate classes. Our main goal is to develop all essential skills and help our students attain general knowledge so that they can function as independently and confidently as possible in both their personal and business lives.
Overall impact
The Skills Builder programme has benefitted our school a lot in many ways. With the programme, we could focus on soft skills across all school subjects to better prepare our students for real life. By developing soft skills, our students can better use the knowledge they have gained during individual lessons. To better schedule the piloting of each soft skill, we made a plan that focused on one of the eight skills each month. At the end of each month, a meeting was scheduled for the involved teachers to share activities they found the most convenient. The whole Skills Builder team was very supportive and professional during the whole school year.
Keep it simple
All participating teachers kept their professional portfolios where they listed activities most suitable for developing each soft skill. Teachers then shared these activities and other findings at the end of the month at the regular meetings. To further help our teachers with developing soft skills, we applied information and activities gathered from the Universal Framework, which was very helpful, especially at the beginning. To further raise awareness about the programme, we have also installed noticeboards in the school corridors with posters of individual soft skills. Furthermore, we have also published an article about the programme in the school magazine and introduced it to pupils' parents during parent-teacher conferences.
Start early, keep going
Students aged 11 - 15 years participated in the piloting. Teachers carefully chose activities close to the pupils' age that matched their current level of the particular soft skill. We continuously try to combine skill development with teaching the individual subject curriculum as far as possible.
Measure it
We assess the progress in developing individual skills on an ongoing basis, mainly through oral assessment. This also includes pupils' self-reflection, such as employing coloured emoticons, where the emphasis is on formative assessment. Teachers also work with skills icon posters, which they award to children after their successful mastering a certain level in a particular soft skill. Overall, we can conclude that towards the end of the school year, teachers are more aware of the soft skills development in their classes.
Focus tightly
As our school focuses on pupils with special educational needs, we focus on an individual approach for each pupil. As in other Czech primary schools, we initially differentiate our students based on age and place them in different grades. Further differentiation then depends on the experience of teachers with individual students and their learning disabilities. The framework has allowed us to target specific steps or building blocks to focus teaching with the learners.
Keep practising
Teachers have realised the importance of developing students' essential soft skills, and, with the help of the Universal Framework and other printed resources provided for each skill, they have plenty of materials they can adapt to be suitable for teaching individual soft skills within different school subjects.
Bring it to life
We informed about the programme in our school magazine Logozprávy and prepared a presentation for parents during the parent-teacher conference. We have also installed noticeboards with posters of the soft skills and displayed relevant students' works.
What's next
In the future, we would like to involve all teachers and students at our school. We want to continue embedding soft skills development in all classes across all school subjects.
