At Park Hill Junior School we take part in the Skills Builder programme. Throughout the year, children are introduced to 8 skills which are important to their learning but also their future life. The 8 skills are:

• Listening
• Speaking
• Problem Solving
• Creativity
• Staying Positive
• Aiming High
• Leadership
• Teamwork 

Research has shown that building these eight essential skills can support the emotional wellbeing and academic success of children, as well as prepare them for life beyond school. Skills Builder has developed a universal framework which breaks each of these essential skills down into 16 teachable steps. In school, we will be using this framework to teach and practise each of the eight skills at the appropriate level for each class.  

Teachers assess their children for all the skills and this helps them to identify a particular skill and step within that skill to work on as a class. The children will be introduced to the skill, be taught lessons specific to the skill and the step they are working on and then apply it to their other lessons and subjects, ensuring that the skill and step becomes embedded. 

As part of our curriculum aims, we prepare our children with skills for their future and believe this programme helps us to focus on and promote this even more. 

The skills are also linked to our 5Rs in the following way: 

Respectful - Listening and speaking skills 

Resourceful - Creativity skill

Resilient - Aiming high and staying positive skills

Relationships - Teamwork and leadership skills 

Reflective - Problem solving skill

Skills Builder has made many of the resources we will use in school available for use at home on the Skills Builder Homezone: www.skillsbuilder.org/homelearning 

On the Homezone, they also post fun daily skills challenges which children can try at home and if you would like to support your child with a particular skill, there are resources there too.

Displays of the skill icons are in all classrooms and the particular skill the children are working on are displayed prominently in the classroom, helping children to remember their focus and link to their other learning and subjects too.