We hope members of our group will see the connection and synergy between the speakers taking part in this meeting.
Skills Builder network
Skills Builder Partnership is a global movement of employers, educators, and impact organisations working together to ensure that one day, everyone builds the essential skills to succeed.
Skills Builder Framework – Sarah Ritchie
The Skills builder partnership provides a universal framework for building skills through education and into employment. There are eight essential skills on the framework broken down into tangible, progressive steps and many schools are using them to help develop these skills with their learners.
The expanded framework will be of particular interest to teachers of those with special/additional needs as it breaks down each of the framework into smaller stepping stones, allowing schools to track smaller steps of progress.
Skills builder has produced a toolkit to support teachers in using the framework including reflective passports and Widgit symbols and posters.
As well as providing access to the framework on their website, Skills builder runs its Accelerator programme which also includes training, support and access to tools and resources. Skills builder supports schools to embed the principles by focusing on the skills and embedding these and tracking progress. Further information about the programme can be found at https://www.skillsbuilder.org/uk-accelerator.
The framework is suitable for learners of all ages and attainment, and is used with adults too (it isn’t just for learners with SEND)
Lessons learned from successful schools include:
- Building in skills to lessons through all years of the schools. Some schools highlight the skills focus alongside the learning objective.
- Using the skills to provide a framework for intervention, planning and monitoring for SEND learners.
- Explicitly focusing on the skills in lessons and assemblies
- Linking STEM opportunities to the framework
- Building skills targets into EHCPs can help learners (and educators) to focus on these skills.
- Sharing progress on the skills with parents
- Giving learners the opportunity to apply these skills in project work, work experience and challenge days as well as lessons.
Examples of case studies can be found at https://www.skillsbuilder.org/showcase
The examples in the meeting came from Haltwhistle Primary Academy, Pioneer House High School and Ormiston Bushfield Academy.
Young STEM Leaders
The Young STEM Leader Programme (YSLP) aims to inspire more young people to develop an interest in STEM and pursue the study of STEM subjects and relevant future pathways.
Details of the programme for Scotland here https://www.youngstemleader.scot/
Young STEM Leaders – Jamie Menzies (SSERC)
The Young STEM Leaders started as a result of STEM policies by the Scottish Government but has expanded to accommodate learners from outside of Scotland. It has been designed to be independent of context and allows students to design STEM experiences and demonstrate their skills in a variety of settings.
The award has formal and non-formal versions. The formal awards are accredited and are equivalent to level 1 and 2 qualifications in England. There are no age requirements for the programme and no prerequisites for any of the levels.
Tutor assessors are trained by SSERC and support the young STEM leaders. They are involved in assessment and quality assurance. The Young STEM leaders lead the activity, builds STEM capital and gains leadership and employability skills along the way.
Activities from Science Week 2023 included leading/supporting learners one on one, running a Scalextric club at lunchtimes, leading STEM activities online (with a school in Brazil), creating STEM resource packs in partnership with a local charity. We also see students delivering lesson and can take place in lessons or in clubs or extracurricular activities. Students have run a broad range of activities in previous projects including running a nail bar, running Facebook for grannies – the important thing is allowing youngsters to have a leadership activity.
Evidence to support the awards can use the logs provided as part of the programme, but schools are encouraged to use a variety of evidence types to allow learners with SEND/additional support needs to access the award.
The programme is designed to be as accessible as possible and allows reasonable adjustments to allow all learners to achieve.
For schools outside of Scotland, SLQ Skills have level 1 and level 2 qualifications available and there are plans to develop the programme further for primary schools. This is very similar to the Scottish version.
https://slqskills.org/stemleaders
For schools in Scotland the programme is fully funded by the Scottish Government, for schools elsewhere there will be a charge for taking part through SLQ Skills.
CREST awards
CREST is a scheme that inspires young people to think and behave like scientists and engineers. It is flexible, student-led and accessible to learners from different backgrounds.
CREST Awards from the British Science Association – Caitlin Brown
CREST awards have been run with learners in many schools. The CREST team at the British Science Association have been doing some work to make the project more accessible to learners with SEND/ASL.
They have started with their “Design a Pizza Box” challenge. This is being rewritten to suit learners aged 11-14. One of the suggestions received was to remove ages from the learner facing resources so that learners aren’t discouraged from completing a lower qualification because of their additional needs.
Many of the resources will now be provided in an editable format so that teachers can tweak resources to suit the needs of their learners.
Feedback from the learners included some of the resources being wordy, needing plenty of space and large print text on PowerPoints.
CREST resources are completely free and open access on the CREST website https://library.crestawards.org/. The new version of the Pizza Box activity is going through the editing and proofing version and should be available soon.
The BSA will make the finalised versions available to members of the inclusive science education to trial. There was a generous offer of voucher codes for some free Bronze awards so that teachers can try them out with their groups through to completion. Rob and Jane are happy to pass on requests to trial to the BSA.
If people are interested in running CREST more generally, but worried about funding, the BSA has various grant schemes available: https://help.crestawards.org/portal/en/kb/articles/grants-and-funding-to-run-crest
Books Beyond Words
Three new books have been released. One about the war in Ukraine, one about going for a medical check-up and horse riding. There are many books now available on the website.
Books Beyond Words have launched three new books https://booksbeyondwords.co.uk/
Links from the chat
Skills Builder expanded framework https://www.skillsbuilder.org/expanded-framework
Skills Builder slides from the presentation here
Young STEM Leaders level 7 pilot (Scotland only) https://forms.office.com/e/iJSjZaSmPi
CREST Awards library https://library.crestawards.org/
Fiendishlyclever 