As Covid19 began to disrupt schools, we considered ways to directly support parents and carers to work with their children to develop the eight essential skills at home. It is more important than ever to develop these skills during such uncertain times: to support children’s social and emotional wellbeing, their academic learning and to ensure they are best prepared for future employment.
School is just one part of the picture in terms of a child or young person’s skill development. Hobbies, interests, community connections and activities at home can all help to build the eight essential skills. With this in mind, we rapidly opened up an extensive suite of free to access resources on our platform Homezone, making available clear guidance, suggested engaging activities, fun challenges and effective tools to support the development of the skills a child needs now and for their future success. Parents and carers can access full guidance from the Skills Builder Partnership website about each of the eight essential skills, along with the Skills Builder Universal Framework, which underpins the work of the partnership to support an understanding of the skills and the progression in each skill.
The Skills Builder Partnership brings together 800+ education institutions, employers and organisations around a common approach to building the essential skills. In 2020 we worked directly with 170,000+ learners through our education programmes. At the start of the pandemic we supported our schools and colleges to continue their skills building programmes by making resources accessible for online remote learning and promoting skill development in the home environment. Working closely with educators and by liaising with parent groups we have found there is an appetite to continue strengthening the links made between school and home over the last year. We are further developing resources and support for parents on Homezone to build on the success of the site to date.
Visit our parents and carers page on our website for information on why parents and carers need to build the essential skills with their child, where and how they can build them. Visit Homezone to access free resources and suggested activities. Learners 11+ can go to Benchmark and Launchpad to discover skill strengths and find interactive modules to support further development.
