Skills Builder Global

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Ryde Academy

Context

At Ryde Academy, we are aspirational for our students and wanted to make sure we are explicitly developing their employability and life skills throughout their school life. Skills Builder provided us with a clear structure which has progression built in and we can use it across the whole academy.

Overall impact

Skills Builder has provided us with a framework to work to which is accessible and easy to follow. Students and teachers have quickly picked up the skills language and can identify opportunities to practice skills so that it is being truly cross-curricular. For example, on a recent Year 7 History trip to a castle, there was a discussion about the different jobs roles in the castle nowadays and the skills the employees would need to demonstrate. This isn't something we would have mentioned before using the framework. It has brought to the front of our minds the explicit discussion and focus on skills alongside gaining qualifications. We have also spoken with over 40 local employers and explained how we use the framework so that when they meet our students they are also linking back to the skills. We started the year leading a workshop with our Prefect team on leadership skills as they were quite worried about some of the roles they may take on. We actually started at the lowest level so that they could feel confident and worked through the skills with a revisit later in the year.

Keep it simple

We have used Skills Builder with all students in tutor time on a weekly basis, allowing every student to develop essential skills across the year. Classrooms display Skills builder posters to remind students and teachers of the skill areas and we have the same skills identified on our extra curricula programme which is on our website. We have led assemblies, shared information with parents through our newsletter and shared the skills with our local employers who support students so that they are also using the same language. Students can identify where they are using the skills in everyday life and how they are relevant to different career pathways, including them on CVs, covering letters and when talking with employers.

Start early, keep going

We start our Skills Builder programme in Year 7 and use it all the way through to Y13. Students can identify where their strengths and areas for development are and have used employer encounters and a range of different activities in school to develop these further. All students take part in Futures Fortnight. Our students are also able to record examples of where they have applied the skills outside of school on our digital My Passport record. Through our newsletter we have directed parents to Skills Builder and highlighted simple ways in which their children can be supported or encouraged to develop and apply skills beyond school.

Measure it

All tutors in the academy have used the "getting started" skill assessment prior to starting a new skill to look at where their students need to focus on starting and identifying a route through the different levels. Staff and students have used the teaching activities to look at application of skills and how they can progress through them, for example, many classes started with a very low level of listening at the start of the academic year and then some moved quite quickly through the different steps whilst others were still learning to listen more. Even though their progress was slower, the very fact they were concentrating on and realising they may not always listen very effectively made a real difference in the long run and it made students realise this as an area to be aware of rather than something taken for granted.

Focus tightly

All students have taken part in weekly lessons on Skills Builder where skills are explicitly taught and reviewed. This is also now starting to be embedded across the curriculum so that skills are linked to lesson activities and learning. The Hub has been really useful in achieving this as there is a wealth of materials on there which are suitable for all different year groups.

Keep practising

In addition to our Future's Fortnight where every subject focusses on skills and careers, we plan specific activities throughout the year for students to be able to practice the skills. For example at a recent careers fair, students were challenged to speak to aspirational employers, they were challenged to ask and respond to questions and were rewarded with stickers and then entry to a prize draw for achieving skills. When students take part in speed employer events or mock interviews, they are expected to be able to describe their strengths using Skills Builder terms and give examples of where they use them. For September, our extra-curricular programme is linked to skills development with our initial advertising of over 40 clubs highlighting the different skills which students can build through attendance.

Bring it to life

This year we redesigned our work experience feedback forms to have a focus on essential skills, sharing information with employers before the start of placements about Skills Builder and what our students had been focussing on. We have multiple Young Enterprise teams running in the school where skills development is highlighted and practiced in real life through the students running their own company for profit. Many of our older students volunteer outside of school and all of our students in the 6th Form are Peer mentors to younger students allowing them to further their skills too.

What's next

We plan to embed Skills builder across our curriculum to maximise opportunities for student skills development. We will start to use Benchmark as we have concentrated on using the Hub this year.

South West England

United Kingdom

Secondary

Ryde Academy