Skills Builder Global

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Pelham Primary School

Context

We were originally an Enabling Enterprise school and have been a Skills Builder school from the beginning! Our aim this year was to elevate the skills curriculum further and not just think about the skills during trips, project weeks and challenge days. We are a successful, inclusive, community school and always looking for ways to innovate and improve things for our children. We have been very interested in not just what our children learn, but how they learn it and what kind of people they become. It is really important to use that our Year 6s leave us for high school as 'Pelhamites' and their strong grounding at the primary level stays with them. Our friendly and welcoming atmosphere is incredibly important to us and our children are integral to this. We want to promote team working, a growth mindset and kindness throughout our curriculum. We want our children to feel empowered that anyone can improve in any area of the skills curriculum with practice, support and clear next steps in learning.

Overall impact

I think it's obviously been a difficult 18 months for everyone, but I am really proud of the children and staff at Pelham. Our CSI Challenge day was one of the first things we did as a whole school (Covid-safe) after the Lockdown and it felt great to have a project that everyone could work on. I think the Accelerator programme is still having a great impact on our work at Pelham. I think children have enjoyed the virtual assemblies and the short lesson during home learning. We have raised the profile of Skills Builder through more displays, having a skill of the month and linking our achievement awards to the skills. We look forward to working with the wider school community further in the next academic year.

Keep it simple

Assemblies- Skills language is now embedded into our weekly achievement assemblies and we use the Skills Builder certificates across the school and really celebrate effort and process, rather than solely outcomes. Skill of the Month- this is celebrated through assemblies and in the corridor displays. Teachers and children are invited to reflect on this skill for the month. Displays- the skills are displayed and referred to in each classroom and in the corridors (we have 3 floors) Parents and Governors- a Skills Builder newsletter went out in the Spring to invite our community to become more involved in our project weeks and challenge days from September 2022 (maybe in person, or virtually) and inform them of the benefits of the programme. Skills Lead Learning Walks- Skills Lead has undertaken learning walks (when possible, under restrictions) to check consistency across the school and support new members of staff. Senior Leadership- Skills Builder is on our School Improvement Plan.

Start early, keep going

Early Years Foundation Stage- the EYFS have really embraced Skills Builder this year and have joined the whole school for challenge days and enjoyed a fantastic superhero project week. Parents have been informed through daily noticeboard communications and newsletters. The Skills Lead will be teaching in Nursery next year and plans to develop this further. During our Crime Scene Investigation day, it could be seen how the skills were developing throughout the school and were growing in challenge and sophistication as you moved through the year groups. Even during Lockdowns and bubble closures, we have kept Skills Builder going with the open sources resources to be used at home, online class discussion around skills and themed assemblies.

Measure it

Teachers use the Hub to record their children's achievements against the skill descriptors. As part of handover in July, teachers will ensure that these are updated, ready for the Skills Lead to transfer classes for the new academic year. On Challenge Days or during Project Weeks, children baseline their skills and discuss what they would like to improve on throughout the week or day. Children in KS1 present Skills Builder pages in their topic books. During learning walks, children have been able to talk articulately about the skills and their focus. we had many discussion in classes around the need to work on teambuilding after lots of the children worked in isolation during lockdowns.

Focus tightly

The short activities and lessons and invaluable and these were great to use during home learning too. Teachers will often use these in short pockets of time, or when something in particular comes up around a skill in class. All classes have timetabled Skills Builder time on their timetables, but eventually we would love this not to have to be timetabled. Real-life examples are often given in assemblies for children to then reflect back on in class. The Philosophy for Children Lead had linked activities and themes to the skills and displayed these in the corridor. Our recent Diversity Day also reflected the skills throughout a range of activities.

Keep practising

Two projects a year and an annual, whole-school Challenge Day are now embedded at Pelham. Lots of teachers have built the skills into their wider curriculum and as we (hopefully) come back together as a staff team and a number of teachers change year groups this year, we will evidence the skills more on our longer term plans. A lot of our extra-curricular activities are run by Pelham staff and skills are mentioned in these e.g. photography club focused on Aiming High. A number of teachers have made strong links between the skills and the curriculums in Maths and Science e.g. referencing it on their planning and using the skills in introductory sessions.

Bring it to life

As mentioned, we hope to use the skills and experiences of our families and Governors more next academic year (this was an aim for this year, but was difficult with restrictions). Years 5 and 6 have taken advantage of the Skills Builder virtual trips; 'it was good to still learn about how the hotel works, even though we couldn't actually go there (Year 6 child, June 2021). Many children were inspired by our Crime Scene Investigation Day - 'It was hard to put all of the fingerprints together, but I think I still want to be a detective when I grow up!' (Year 2 child, April 2021). School Council have looked at the skills across their work e.g. when we supported the local Food Bank at Christmas time they talked about leadership and teamworking skills.

What's next

I think as we come back together as a team, we can continue our focus of weaving the skills throughout the whole curriculum and involving our wider school community. I think it would be good to get back into the good habits of assessing regularly and addressing any skills gaps that children may have. The only challenges this year have been the really obvious ones, I think we have a fantastically supportive staff team at Pelham and that Skills Builder will continue to go from strength to strength.

South East England

United Kingdom