The learners, aged between 15 to 17 years, study at iTeach, an NGO-run school located in Kondhwa, Pune, India. Our educational approach has primarily focused on building core academic competencies such as literacy, numeracy, and subject-specific knowledge and exposure to co-curriculars through hobby clubs and sports. Our students come from low income backgrounds, have low aspirations for higher education and struggle to get job opportunities after school. Until joining the Global Accelerator, we have not followed a formalized framework for developing non-academic skills. Although we have made consistent efforts to nurture essential life skills in our students, such as effective communication, active listening, and a mindset of aiming high, we have not previously adopted a specific rubric or structured program for skill development. Our aim is to equip students not only with academic proficiency but also with the confidence, problem-solving abilities and interpersonal skills needed to thrive in the real world.
In our year 2 of SBF, we have impacted approximately 300 students through hobby clubs and project based learning classes. Our main focus strands were teamwork, listening, speaking and problem solving. Since we brought these strands into students’ Unit wise assessments, students and teachers were also more mindful about building these skills inside the classroom on a daily basis. I feel our teachers also upskilled themselves by learning how to integrate SBF skills into a Unit Plan and a lesson plan.
To embed Principle 1: Keep it Simple, this year we increased the scale of SBF in our school from 12 student leaders to the entire school through 2 structures:
Project based learning in BYP (Bridge Year Program is a 1 year foundational grade for struggling students before they enter Grade 8), Grade 8 and Grade 9 that intentionally aligned and assessed students on 2 SBF skills through the Unit.
Hobby Clubs for the entire school Grade 8, Grade 9 and Grade 10 that were aligned and assessed on 2 SBF skills through the Unit. There are 4 Units through the academic year, at the end of each Unit, teachers assessed their student work using a rubric that incorporated SBF skills like listening, speaking, team work, problem solving etc with the exact step mentioned that they prioritised for that Unit.
Every week, all students were engaged in 2 hours of hobby clubs like dance, science club, creative writing club, quiz club etc where they practiced 2 SBF strands in each depending on which club they were in. Each week, BYP, G8 and G9 students had 2 hours of project based learning classes as well where in groups of 3-4 students worked on a project with broken down objectives each week and 2 SBF strands that they focussed on.
Last year we managed to scale the program to our entire school however, I feel there was a lack of depth in execution. We figured out how to assess the skill but I would want to conduct trainings for teachers on how to teach the skill through project based learning or hobby club sessions. For now, we have paused on SBF integration as a priority however, due to literacy and numeracy being our big focus as our incoming students have large learning gaps. We will take a call after a year or two, if we can get SBF integration back into our school program if we are able to bridge learning gaps better.
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