Accelerator

The nominated Skills Leader will attend 2 virtual training days (9-3pm), where they work with fellow Skills Leaders. The nominated Skills Leader and a member of SLT will both attend 3 virtual strategy meetings across the year, this is 121 with your Skills Builder contact. You will also book 2 virtual training sessions for your staff, most do this in a regular staff training slot and it’s 2 1-hour slots. The goal is to explicitly build essential skills through the curriculum and special experiences, many do this by dedicating a weekly or fortnightly 20 minute slot to essential skills. You can see more about the programme structure on the “programme” tab.

We’re a not-for-profit social enterprise and accessibility is important to us. The Accelerator costs £2090 per institution per year. However, we fundraise over £400k every year to remove this cost barrier for schools and colleges. You can check your eligibility to apply for a funded place here.

Most importantly, the Skills Leader should be someone passionate about building students’ essential skills. The Skills Leader needs to attend 2 virtual training days, be able to organise 2 staff training sessions and to implement change. Change looks different but might include a regular tutorial slot for essential skills, reviewing curriculum plans to map essential skills, organising special events. Most Skills Leaders have other responsibilities in school or college, e.g., careers, teaching & learning, PSHE, year team lead.

It takes about fifteen minutes to complete an online application form. There are 4 big questions. 

1. What commitments are in place from your Senior Leadership Team to support this programme?
2. How might the Skills Builder Accelerator support priorities in your school or college?
3. How will you use the Skills Builder Accelerator to support your students most in need of building their essential skills?
4. What excites you about becoming a Skills Leader on the Skills Builder Accelerator?

You cannot save an application in progress so need to start and submit at the same time. We review applications after each deadline. You will be contacted via email in the week after the deadline outcome of your application.

There are only 200 places available each year, which means we can only work with the most committed schools and colleges. This is especially true for those applying for funded places. In your application, you will need to demonstrate that you understand the time commitment and logistics, and that you will be supported by senior leadership to enact change in school/college.

We review applications in the week after each deadline. We will contact you in the week following the deadline. If your application is successful, your place on the programme is confirmed and you are committed to the programme for the following academic year. This is one of the reasons it is important to ensure that someone in the senior leadership team is the second contact on the application.

We review applications in the week after each deadline. We will contact you in the week following the deadline. If your application is unsuccessful, we will contact you to let you know why. We might need to clarify something with you over a call, or we may invite you to reapply in the next round.

Yes - visit the Global Accelerator website to find out more.

Yes, you are welcome to apply but will probably need to self-fund the programme. You can check your eligibility to apply for a funded place here. Alternatively, you may prefer to purchase Digital Membership.

• You can see the other schools and colleges on the Accelerator here
• You can see the social impact organisations using the Skills Builder Universal Framework here (e.g. National Literacy Trust, Unifrog, Morrisby, Barclays Life Skills, Children’s University, Harlequins Foundation)
• You can see the employers working with us here. 
• The goal is to use common language for essential skills across education, the third-sector and employment.

It’s likely that there’s lots going on in your school or college to build essential skills already. By working with us, we can make it more explicit and consistent across your staff body. The programme and resources are often used to improve existing priorities e.g. oracy, careers, employability, personal development, PSHE, behaviours for learning, SEND intervention. You will work closely with a former teacher (your Education Associate) who will ensure existing priorities are incorporated and the programme has maximum impact on student progress.

The Universal Framework outlines how to teach and assess eight essential skills. However, you will choose how many of these to focus on across the year. Many schools and colleges focus on just one step of one skill per term / half term but there are lots of other ways of structuring it. Often, mainstream students make 1 or 2 steps of progress across an academic year. Your dedicated Education Associate will support you to make these decisions in your first Strategy Meeting, but it can be good to include initial ideas in your application too. Pupils are not expected to leave education at Step 16 of every skill. Our employer partners use the Universal Framework to continue building adults' essential skills.

OfSTED inspects institutions’ intent to provide for the “personal development” of all pupils, and the quality with which this work is implemented under the 2019 framework. This is broad but includes character (a set of positive personal traits that guides student conduct), readiness for next steps (so pupils can transition successfully) and social skills (so students can work effectively with others). At the end of the first year, you will have a team of staff who are confident to build essential skills and demonstrable student progress in skills like teamwork, problem solving, listening and aiming high. We regularly support Skills Leaders in the run up to inspections so don’t want this to be a barrier for you.