This year, we have expanded the Skills Builder programme from just a few classes to the whole school. The pilot groups shared their success and advocated for the teaching of skills, More teachers began to follow this group and eventually, essential skills education has become the norm throughout the school. Class teachers are assigned a skill for their class to focus on for the year. Teachers then strategically integrate this skill into all classroom activities, particularly those emphasising speaking, creativity, teamwork, and goal-setting. By following the guidelines outlined in the framework, we've witnessed significant growth and development of these skills among our students.

This year we have focused on conducting accurate skill assessments, and teachers received training on assessment from the Education Associate. The Framework is broken into smaller steps for our students. This gives insights into the needs of the class as a whole. In this way, teachers and students generate an insight into which steps have already been achieved on the Skills Builder Framework, and what therefore should be the next focus. The vast positive change in the performance of students, both in academic and extracurricular activities are recorded and the teachers continue to maintain a record of every child. Worksheets are given to students, adapted from the Skills Builder Workbooks, which help them in understanding the essence of the skill and accomplish the given task. This data has proved to be very helpful for planning interventions and support. The feedback from teachers using the framework as a tool for assessment is very positive.

This year a period a week is allotted on Saturdays for skills building, with teachers using the skills Builder Hub and its resources. These sessions have a clear skill focus and outcome. Students are given opportunities to discuss the outcome of the skills attained in class during other activities. Importantly, skills are integrated as a part of lessons and not treated as a stand-alone subject. Along with other aspects of our ‘lesson plan template’ like objectives, learning outcomes, resources etc, skills and skill steps acquired are also planned. Every activity, lesson or event executed is associated with skill enhancement.

We teachers are able to reinforce the skills by running a huge number of activities across the academic year. This year we conducted our project day and our School Annual day under the topic ‘Incredible India’. These were mapped to particular skills for the students to identify and apply.

There have been several projects that provide students with the opportunity to bring all eight of the skills to life. Examples include a project on waste wise management (this was aimed to create awareness within the neighbourhood), Kids to Kids (an initiative by our senior students to reach out to the less privileged children), Jatayu (A TI Alumni Initiative) and Road Safety Patrol to create awareness among the general public about safety on road and the importance of wearing seat belts and helmets. Extracurricular activities such as Art Club, Theatre and Literary Club, Nature Club, Heritage Club are included in the type of target setting that goes on in school and the school has been able to apply the essential skills in a structured manner in a wider scope this year. At all Parent-Teacher meetings, parents were asked to give feedback on the impact of the program with their children. We have received very promising feedback from the parents.