Skills Builder Silver Award

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.

We are thrilled to announce that Boston Endeavour Academy has received the Skills Builder Silver Award!

The school got involved initially because we were keen to enhance our Careers and Independence Programme and develop our Careers related learning opportunities. We also felt that it would be a great way to support our pupils to achieve our school mission of maximising learning and development, and supporting our pupils to become happy and fully-included members of their community. Skills Builder came highly recommended to us by the Lincolnshire SEND Employment Officer.

The essential skills were introduced early in the academic year by the Careers Lead during a whole school assembly to make the pupils aware of them very early on. Following this, the skills have gradually been embedded into more areas of the curriculum and are now used more widely, for example, by the Post 14 department who have worked on a challenge with PepsiCo. With the skills being built into assembly, specialist lessons and other areas of the curriculum, the pupils are able to see how the skills support their learning and develop their skills.

The impact has been that most of our pupils are now familiar with the eight essential skills. Where able, some have completed the eight essential skills passports to support their vocational profiles, planning for their futures.

Teachers and class leads have good knowledge of the essential skills and refer to them regularly throughout the school day. This has been further developed through the signposting of the essential skills icons which are displayed in all classrooms, the cookery room and hall. They are referred to during assemblies, making it increasingly clear that Skills Builder has become a key feature at BEA. All classes have made progress on each of the essential skills over the course of the year. This has been tracked on the hub and the results have helped to inform future planning for all classes. Many of our Post 14 pupils have been able to not only clearly see the progress that they have made, but also be able to identify their next steps.

Following on from the work that we have implemented last academic year, we would like to continue to embed Skills Builder into our curriculum so that we can continue to develop the confidence of staff and support the pupils to continue to build upon the great progress that they have already made towards their essential skills. We would like to ensure that the pupils Post 14 continue to complete their essential skills passports alongside their vocational profiles so that they can make further progress towards achieving their aspirations.

We have already made great steps towards embedding Skills Builder into our Careers Programme. Moving forward, we would like to ensure that it is used in all aspects of careers related learning for the whole school.