Year 7 Life Skills Programme
Tadcaster Grammar School, Business and Enterprise College, North
Yorkshire
Students need to realise their own potential and not be told what it is!
From this vantage-point, all is possible.
Top Tips
1. Use the VLE as the vehicle for delivery of the programme, with the Personal
learning and thinking skills (PLTS) framework at its core. ICT technical support
is vital for success.
2. Keep the delivery 21st century – otherwise, there is a danger of ‘de-skilling’ the
young people, who are usually more technologically advanced than the
teacher!
3. It is important to be confident in allowing the students to take ownership of
the lessons and drive them forward themselves. The more we facilitate rather
than lead, the more they think for themselves.
Nationally there are frustrations from both employers and Higher Education institutions at the lack of
well-rounded citizens leaving secondary and further education. The fall-out rate from college or
university is increasing and young people entering employment do not have a broad enough skill set
to adapt to the needs of the employer, hence large investment in training.
As part of our Leading Edge work we created a skills-based programme for Year 7 students to realise
their own potential and not be told what it is! This involved enabling the students to develop, transfer
and improve upon their own, personal ‘Skills Tool-kit’ and to help others improve their skills also.
Tadcaster Grammar School’s leadership team felt that, we needed to ‘turn the curriculum on its head’
and create a skills-based curriculum at its core, which all subject areas could both benefit from and
complement.
The Life Skills programme was born and was introduced to Year 7 students last September.
So, first question… where do you start putting together a skills-based course? The school curriculum
allowed for three hour-long lessons per week to be allocated to Life Skills. The lessons were set up
as a double lesson and one single lesson each week. The double lesson was important so as to
accommodate deeper learning and opportunities for more extensive discussion and questioning from
the students. If this is not built in, passive learning can prevail. A working group was set up to look at
the content and process that needed to be included. The PLTS framework was to be at the core of
the delivery and the course enveloping aspects of PHSE, Citizenship, Careers Education and
Guidance and Enterprise Capability. Alongside these national curriculum requirements, sat the Every
Child Matters criteria. The course needed to be underpinned by a model of Assessment for Learning,
which would highlight and track student progress over the year in all key areas. This was a
challenge! For the sake of the students and staff delivering the course, with its multi-faceted content,
it was decided that ‘less is more’.
Two models for assessment were created: Toolkit Tasks were set up to focus on the PLTS criteria,
with one of the six skills being assessed each half term. The Toolkit Task would be based on four
distinct outcomes: What has the student shown in relation to the skill? How has the student
participated in the task set? Where has the student used that skill elsewhere in and out of school and
how would that student seek to improve upon that skill? The second model of assessment was
created as a more robust, in-depth, project-based assessment focusing on citizenship participation
and PHSE requirements. There is an abundance of material that can be covered but the students
need distinct guidelines with respect to what is being assessed and developed within their Skills
Toolkit.
How do you start such a course? Its strength had to lie in its relevance to the students so that they
took ownership for their own learning and development. Far too often, as practitioners, we field the
complacency and blame culture within society… after-all, a school reflects all walks of life! These
young people, from the moment they enter our gates, must feel empowered and trusted to make
decisions, take risks where necessary and map out their own futures with our help and guidance.
The other element that must not be under-estimated is that of the worries held by the Year 6 students
and their parents as they make that substantial move from primary to secondary education. We
launched the course with the students in relation to taking part in their educational journey as a citizen
of Tadcaster Grammar School. It was relevant to start the course by looking at the cross-curricular
dimensions of Identity and Community Participation. We focused on ‘Who Am I and How do I Learn?,
building in ‘Learn2Learn’ materials and ‘Philosophy 4 Children’ processes. After their first term we
covered Enterprise activities and Careers Education, finishing off in the third term with Healthy
Lifestyles and issues surrounding puberty. All content was built around many pair & share or group
work activities, which is highly interactive. The VLE was the anchor for delivery and assessment, with
teachers marking the Toolkit tasks and Assessments on-line. ICT extension activities were built in to
a single lesson every other week. It became very apparent that students really embraced this 21st
century approach. On many occasions, students would thank staff for their ‘emailed’ feedback about
their homework!
PLTS criteria were met. Students embraced the interactive, mature approach to their learning.
They enjoyed questioning their own ideas and perceptions of topics discussed and appreciated being
listened to. We are currently working with Sherburn High School, who want to introduce a similar
course on their VLE and support and guidance from our staff has been built in under the Collaborative
Partnership remit. Other schools and FE colleges have visited to find out more about the course and
have felt inspired to rejuvenate their own Skills and Personal Development programmes of study.
The current Year 7 course is being reviewed and a new course is under development to roll out to
Year 8 students in September 2010. The Year 9 programme will then be created and so on. More
collaboration with partner schools is envisaged and consultancy provided.
School name
Tadcaster Grammar School
LA
North Yorkshire County Council
Specialism (if any)
Business and Enterprise College/Leading Edge
Context of school
11-18, Secondary with 6th form, mixed sex
Contact name at school for the
article/case study and
resources
Amanda Henson, Head of department, Leading Edge Contact
a.henson@tadcaster.n-yorks.sch.uk
01937 837650