This Training and Support dashboard features a variety of content to help you to build your learners’ essential skills, including online training modules. Explore these modules below.
A guide for schools and colleges outlining the Skills Builder approach, principles and different levels of Award.
A toolkit for building essential skills at all levels of education - including the Skills Builder Universal Framework and the Skills Builder Principles.
A comprehensive guide for Teachers and Facilitators, to building essential skills in learners with additional needs. Includes the Expanded Universal Framework, which breaks down each skill into teachable nuggets, and six Principles for robustly building skills.
This Resource Pack provides an overview of resources and activities to support learners, including those with additional needs. Alongside this overview, Best Practice Snapshots give examples of where these have been successfully applied in an inclusive learning setting.
This resource pack has been designed for schools to use to support their communications with parent and carers and the wider school community to introduce Skills Builder and how to build the eight essential skills at home.
Click here to view the educational settings who have achieved a Bronze, Silver or Gold award on the Accelerator programme.
In this lesson, you will be introduced to the Skills Builder Partnership. You will:
- Explore who we are and why we exist
- Understand our mission
- Explore how we work
In this lesson you will:
- Explore the Skills Builder Hub and its key features
- Understand how to find the best resources for your learners
In this lesson you will:
- Explore Skills Builder Benchmark and its key features
- Explore Skills Builder Launchpad and its key features
- Understand how to get the most impact from these tools
In this lesson you will:
- Reflect on the relevance of essential skills post-pandemic
- Explore the additional challenges in building essential skills when social distancing
- Consider how to keep students thinking about their essential skills at home and in school
- Explore other resources you could share with students
An introduction to the essential skills.
In this lesson, you will learn about the Skills Builder Universal Framework. You will:
- Understand how the Universal Framework defines and measures essential skills
- Reflect on how you can measure skills progress
- Learn how to use the Universal Framework to define, measure, and teach the essential skills
How the Universal Framework makes use of low abstraction, highly tangible descriptions to support learners.
In this lesson you will:
- Learn how the language of the Universal Framework aids metacognitive strategies
- Practise using the language in a real-world scenario
- Discover different approaches other schools and colleges are using to embed the language across their settings
Efforts schools and colleges in the Skills Builder Partnership are making to celebrate learner achievement.
Easy ideas to enrich the learning environment to better support the language of essential skills.
In this lesson on teaching essential skills to children under the age of 5, you will:
- Learn how standard early years practice is highly compatible with essential skills teaching
- Explore the Expanded Universal Framework
- Think about when learners use the essential skills and what this could mean for your teaching
In this lesson, Essential Skills with Learners aged 5-11, you will:
- Consider the importance of building essential skills over time
- Learn what other schools are doing with children this age
In this lesson, Essential Skills for Learners aged 11-16. You will:
- Consider the importance of building essential across the age range
- Learn what other schools are doing with learners this age
Essential skills in Further Education
In this lesson you will:
- Consider how the Universal Framework is designed to easily assess progress
- Take a closer look at how the Universal Framework is constructed
- Learn how to use the Universal Framework to aid formative assessment
In this lesson you will:
- Recap what the Skills Builder Hub is and who it is for
- Learn how to use the Skills Builder Hub to aid formative assessment
In this lesson you will:
- Recap what Skills Builder Benchmark is and who it is for
- Learn how to use Skills Builder Benchmark to aid formative assessment
In this lesson you will:
- Learn how to use Skills Builder's Universal Framework to teach essential skills in a more focussed way
- Consider how knowledge is a key component of effective skills teaching
- Consider overlaps between teaching skill steps and other curriculum areas
In this lesson you will:
- Consider the principles of deliberate practice
- Practise applying these principles
In this lesson you will:
- Explore different resources on the Skills Builder Hub
- Learn how to find the right resources for your learners
In this lesson you will:
- Explore the online modules on Skills Builder Launchpad
- Learn how to direct your learners to the right resources for them
You will learn that skills are practised all the time and think about when and where might be the best times to highlight their use.
In this lesson you will:
- Learn how essential skills can be woven into an already packed curriculum
- Practise spotting opportunities to teach and reinforce essential skills
In this lesson you will:
- Consider the benefits of connecting learning in the classroom with the wider world
- Learn the principles of effective project-based learning
- Learn some approaches to creating meaningful employer encounters