Tag Archives: Skills

IDL in Teacher Education, Part Two: Planning for IDL Through Dramatic Enquiry⤴

from @ The IDL Network

In part one of this two-part article, I exemplified how my student primary teachers critically examine CfE guidance on IDL. In this second post, I describe how I have been exploring IDL examples and implementation with students through Mantle of the Expert (MoE) – an approach to dramatic enquiry first developed by Dorothy Heathcote in … Continue reading "IDL in Teacher Education, Part Two: Planning for IDL Through Dramatic Enquiry"

IDL in Teacher Education, Part One: The IDL Implementation Gap⤴

from @ The IDL Network

Within Scotland’s Curriculum for Excellence (CfE), interdisciplinary learning (IDL) is one of four contexts for learning (along with curriculum areas and subjects; ethos and life of the school; and opportunities for personal achievement). However, despite its supposed centrality within CfE, IDL has ‘not yet become a habitual learning approach in all of Scotland’s schools’ (Education … Continue reading "IDL in Teacher Education, Part One: The IDL Implementation Gap"

Work, learning and community in the 21st century⤴

from @ The IDL Network

Jobs in the 21st century are becoming project-driven and problem-driven rather than subject-driven, requiring teamwork that involves the collaborative engagement of specialists and generalists. Employers increasingly seek to employ those with breadth of knowledge and skills, including communication, interpersonal and technical skills, and the capacity to analyse problems from different perspectives. Subject-specific knowledge is no … Continue reading "Work, learning and community in the 21st century"

Abercromby Primary- Skills Approach⤴

from @ Education Scotland's Learning Blog

The school supports Clackmannanshire’s aim of increasing the number of pupils reaching positive destinations. The aim of the ‘Skills Academy’ at Abercromby Primary is to develop skills for learning, life and work from Early to Second Level, across a broad range of curricular areas. The school believe that building confidence to achieve goals should begin as early as possible for all our pupils, alongside equipping them with the skills to achieve this.

Abercromby staff recognise the involvement of our whole school community as being key to driving forward the aims of our Skills Academy. This includes parental involvement and partnerships with the wider community, local business and Forth Valley College. Parents have been involved in planning, leading learning through sharing their knowledge and expertise by giving talks and setting up practical activities and challenges for our learners, as well as volunteering their time to support groups of children on visits.

One afternoon per week is dedicated to skills development for all learners. Activities are planned around ‘I can statements’ from the Careers Education Scotland Standard 3-18 with strong links to Literacy, Numeracy and HWB.

Year 1:
P6 and P7 pupils were allocated to groups based on their future ambitions and interests and worked on a 10 week project. All pupils visited Forth Valley College – Alloa Campus to learn about courses on offer and the facilities. Pupils returned with positive impressions of further education.

There were 5 work streams consisting of:

Food Technology – pupils participated in cookery lessons and focused on skills, hygiene, safety and using equipment. They had a visit from a chef, cake decorator and local butcher who talked about their career paths, qualifications and skills required for their job as well as leading experiences. Pupils also visited the Hospitality Department at Forth Valley College Stirling and the Home Economics department at the local high school.

Design and Manufacture – The pupils visited the Engine Shed in Stirling twice, to learn about the design of buildings, materials, resources and architecture around the world. A local Graphic Designer delivered a session, looking at various companies’ logos and design. Pupils also visited FVC Design and Media Department. Focus on STEM.

Money Sense and Enterprise – Pupils set up their own business, created a name, logo, market research and set up their business, Slime Time.

Community – Pupils worked with a volunteer in the school and community garden, making bird feeders, planting flowers and vegetables. They were also involved in the renovation of Cambus Woods, planting trees and continuing to monitor their progress.

Creativity – Pupils are working towards creating a documentary about our new school. They began by looking at films and discussed the format of a documentary and narrative. They have begun to write storylines for their own film.

Year 2 –
This Session is built on existing practice and extended across the school.  There was an initial discussion/lesson and timeline designed by each learner. Each week the children move round in a carousel format to the different planned activities.

Diageo, a local employer are supporting sessions with senior pupils, including 5 week blocks with 2 engineers and 2 scientists. FVC and Robertsons are also supporting 5 week blocks. Their IDL Skills Academy Poster was showcased at a recent conference at the Royal Society of Edinburgh.

Statistics show that pupils in Clackmannanshire are more likely to be unemployed and less likely to go on to positive destinations on leaving school, than the average pupils in Scotland. Additionally unemployment is closely linked to deprivation deciles. Just under 40% of pupils reside in deciles 1 and 2, which means statistically those pupils are less likely to find employment in future.

The Skills Academy is providing a structure to ensure positive outcomes for our learners. This programme has been designed, taking account of evaluations and feedback . It is tailored to meet the needs of all learners and will continue to develop depending on interests and skills development required to support future goals. This starts in the nursery where children are developing skills through daily activities and increasingly taking on more roles of responsibility.

Abercromby are  making the most of all the opportunities afforded by their unique position of having a campus.  Partnership with Robertson Construction ensures that pupils from all stages are exposed to experiences related to ‘jobs’ on the site. This involves visiting the site and recording progress in mixed age groups and Robertson staff working with pupils in the school and nursery on numerous activities, with a strong focus on STEM and team building challenges.

All pupils have the opportunity to participate in all activities within their year group, ensuring a well-rounded experience. All are included and participation in this programme which impacts positively on their health and wellbeing, ensuring that they are equipped with the essential skills, knowledge and attributes for further education, the world of work and beyond.

Relationships across our whole school community are stronger, which impacts on  learner’s health and wellbeing and future prospects. This partnership has supported the driving of the programme forward. Everyone’s contributions are valued and there is real sense of ‘team’.

Staff have improved their understanding and practice of DYW. A Baseline was completed using the Careers Education Scotland Standard Self-Evaluation Tool.  Informed planning with members of staff taking responsibility for planning work streams and activities. Resources to support DYW were purchased through PEF. Staff have enjoyed working with mixed groups of children who are not in their class. Pupils have also benefited from working in different teams.

Pupil have been involved in consultation and evaluations. Pupil are engaged in Skills Academy Learning. They have had careers related experiences they would not have otherwise had. Pupils are thinking more about careers and engaging more in focused discussions about future employment. They are more aware of job opportunities and different roles and skills required for jobs they weren’t aware of before. They have increased their knowledge of local employers. They have been fully engaged and motivated when they have been working with parents and other partners. They have developed new employability skills and have contributed to improving their local environment.

Bramble Brae Primary School- Partnership Approach to DYW⤴

from @ Education Scotland's Learning Blog

Bramble Brae School worked with all stakeholders to redesign a bespoke curriculum for the school. Creativity and employability skills are being developed within the curriculum as they engage with local employers to create an enriching and inspiring learning environment: making connections across different areas of learning and using whole school themes to encourage involvement and deepen understanding.

Through this, the school is developing materials and opportunities for learning in a wide variety of contexts and settings: from the local supermarket; to a nearby building site and visits from local musicians to share stories about local history and traditions throughout the school. Displays, open mornings, assemblies and local radio interviews are some of the ways in which the children share their skills and the value of their experiences with others.

The school motto: Belonging, Believing Achieving encapsulates the vision, values and aims that Bramble Brae aspire to. To support this the school embarked on a unique approach by employing a Business and Community Ambassador, more commonly known as the ‘Good Fairy’ by staff and pupils; a first for Aberdeen City. Through working collaboratively with teachers and pupils, she initiates and develops relevant links with businesses, employers and third sector partners across the city, country and even the world! This has resulted in the ‘World of Work’ being embedded across the curriculum and throughout the school, with links from Nursery through to P7. This role also provides flexibility to meet with potential partners and provides valuable and meaningful communication between all partners to share information about the particular and specific needs and aspirations of children and allows freedom to develop learning materials which can be built upon for successive year groups. The partnerships benefit pupils within school and in after school activities. The school runs entrepreneurial activities throughout all classes and has an annual showcase, celebratory event that all are invited to.

In P6 employability skills are developed with partners to provide a real insight into the skills pupils are developing: their strengths and preferences in how they make choices in different situations which leads to them analysing and then ultimately becoming mini-apprentices in real life roles within the school. This work augments the world of work ‘Animal Me’ exercises by involving a local psychologist from a business consultancy introducing personality tests to build confidence then looks at what each individual child brings to the world. The school have then built links with the University Business School and lecturers help them to understand how skills they are developing are sought for specific roles in the world of work.

Mock interviewing is a brilliant way of building resilience and communication skills and each applicant works within their chosen role either within the school, or within the local community library or secondary school if they choose to apply for a librarian position. The School’s programme has been recognised by Skills Development Scotland who shared this as good practice with other schools after meeting the children involved. They have information for a case study which they are hoping to share online in the future. By looking at familiar jobs within the school the children developed an understanding of how people help them and have become more responsible in their behaviour and approach to others. It’s also helped them identify skills they have or can acquire for the work of work and widened their horizons. They enjoyed sharing this learning with other classes and parents/carers in the showcase celebration event too. It’s encouraged them to challenge perceptions of themselves and others as well as enhancing their learning across all areas of the curriculum.

Throughout the school all pupils develop employability and creativity skills with whole school contexts for learning across the year.

– A new theme starts with all pupils identifying their BIG questions
– These are shared with the ‘Good Fairy’ looks at possible links, resources or visits
– All work collaboratively to facilitate these.
– Through this approach, there is a focus on personalisation and choice.

Promoting equity, equality, diversity and inclusion through their partnerships to develop employability and creativity. This innovative approach enables access to world of work for the children. Many of whom do not have access to family and friends to ask about this. These experiences are particularly valuable for many of our children who live within an area designated as a ‘regeneration area’ and who have many different experiences through school which increase their social capital. Some examples include:

A female engineer visiting to talk about renewable energy. They embraced the chance to ask her about what she did in the oil and gas industry. Through this link, the children were then able to explore diversity and equality further through an expansive Flat Stanley activity by writing letters to her work colleagues across the globe asking about where they lived and what it was like there.

Event where they invited 4 local schools to take part in an event to tackle gender stereotyping and perceptions about the world of work. A huge benefit in reducing gender stereotypes and inspiring pupils was reported after this highly interactive event.

Looking at the local environment and visiting new housing close to the school that pupils were interested in. They arranged a whole class visit to the building site. Being with builders, architects and site managers provided an insight into skills for future jobs.

Impacts on the learners include an increase in self-determination, self-esteem, self-belief and enthusiasm plus suggestions of whom we might engage with to enrich their learning experiences. By having and building upon partner relationships the children and teachers, feel comfortable in asking questions and there are reciprocal benefits in terms of understanding for employers about current education practice, the value of their input in making a positive difference and, often, a renewed interest in their own role within an organisation having explained what they do and what they enjoy about their job to a class of inquisitive pupils. Also, with a move towards diversity, equality and inclusion within our business partners’ corporate social responsibility values, their involvement with our school and community supports these values. The school celebrates success together and within the community.

During the summer term, each class puts together activities and materials to celebrate and share how they’ve engaged with organisations to develop their employability and creativity skills. This whole school showcase is open to all parents/carers; partners and the community and, last year, was a lively and interactive session designed and led by the children to demonstrate how they’d developed and what they’d enjoyed learning throughout the school year.

Staff find that being able to introduce a topic with a practical example, finding someone who has expertise and resources to share with the pupils brings an extra dimension into the classroom and can support and develop interdisciplinary learning.

Castlemilk High School-Skills Framework⤴

from @ Education Scotland's Learning Blog

Developing young people’s skills is a priority in Castlemilk High School. The leadership team comprising of a senior staff member, a Developing the Young Workforce (DYW) lead, youth worker, careers advisor and MCR pathways coordinator have adopted a streamlined and transparent approach to developing young people’s skills for life, learning and work. To support this, a ‘Skills Framework’ – known as ‘the Two ships and the 3’C’s’ has been implemented across all aspects of the curriculum.

The Framework is embedded into learning to ensure that all young people are engaging with a holistic language which was carefully created to allow them to recognise and understand their skill sets and relate these to their career aspirations. The impact is that young people are better able to articulate their skills set preparing them for the world of work.

Collaboration with both the wider community and employers has been integral to successful realisation of this goal. Following guidance in key documents such as BTC4, a strategic meeting of the team identified assess skills gaps in the labour market. The staff and parents of young people were asked to identify skills that young people needed to develop further to make them ‘work ready’.
The view of our partnership employers events were also aligned with this. This ensured that the Framework reflected both our local community too. The development of visual design for the Framework was supported by a local graphics company.

The consultation with staff, parents and partners was highlighted as a key strength of the Framwork during a recent inspection by Education Scotland and was praised for its sector leading approach to skills development.

In a competitive world, Castlemilk High School feel it is important for our young people to be able to confidently articulate their skills to give them a better chance of securing positive destinations. The ‘Skills Framework’ was developed to address the skills requirement for the current and future labour markets. By creating a common language, they expect that these transferable skills will become more transparent and identifiable to the young people across their curricular learning.

Staff in the school are openly engaging with young people in conversations about their own skill sets and have displayed their own personal ‘skills journey’ from school to the work place in attractive poster displays created by the DYW team.

Staff use the ‘Two Ships and the Three Cs’ to compliment learning and teaching:

Science

Pupil Log Books are adapted to encourage learners’ to identify skills they have developed during a unit of work allowing them to make meaningful connections as to how these skills can be applied across curricular areas.

Drama and Music

A skills focus is shared every lesson with one skill from the Framework at the fore, strengthening our young peoples’ ability to recognise transferability of skills between curricular areas.

Wider Achievement programme has further developed and helped to track skills using the Framework. Young people elect to take three Wider Achievement blocks, one per term. Using a tracking system, young people assess themselves against the skills framework, recording their skills journey through a variety of activities designed to enhance personal achievement. For example:

Young person may decide to focus on enhancing their leadership skills during a wider achievement block. By opting for an activity designed to enhance that skill, they can target skills that need improvement and take ownership over working towards them.

Many young people need support in articulating their skills and describing the qualities that they have developed. By providing a common framework and language, this enables our young people to confidently compete more effectively in the post-school market against their counterparts. The Skills Framework is key in allowing us to work with the young people against the cultural and economic barriers they face in our community.

In addition, we have embedded flexible and tailored work placement opportunities for young people by effectively tracking our young peoples’ skills and aspirations. This approach has been praised by external agencies involved in DYW.

The work placement format focuses on ensuring young people get the most out of their time in the work place, setting goals with regard to the Skills Framework prior to going and reflecting on these when returned.

In addition, work-related subject choices with a focus in the Skills Framework have been embedded into curriculum:

Princes Trust,

Rural Skills

Community Youth Work Skills.

This ensures  learning is focused on providing the skills that allow them to flourish. These courses not only gain qualifications but they build on skills that aren’t always available in a more traditional school curriculum.

The Skills Framework has allowed a greater focus on the aspects of work-related learning that can have most impact to our young people. Partnership has been at the very heart of our ‘Skills Framework’ from the outset. The team itself consist of a number of diverse stakeholders drawn from existing partnerships with the Castlemilk Youth Complex, MCR Pathways and Skills Development Scotland. This has allowed the ‘Two Ships and the Three Cs’ to filter readily into our community.

The DYW team are responsible for co-ordinating all aspects of young person’s work journey and the Skills Framework are increasingly moving towards the centre of this. For example, in conversations with Skills Development Scotland advisor, young people are encouraged to describe and apply their skills when writing personal statements and applying for college or part time work. The Framework is used as a toll in 1:1 conversations to explore and develop young people’s career management skills, allowing them to identify their own skills and how this fits into the world of work.

In addition, MCR pathways co-ordinator uses the Framework to support her work with care-experienced young people. Young people are encouraged to develop their skills from the Framework and five S3-S6 young people are MCR Pathways Young Ambassadors.

S1-S3 YP are given opportunities to visit universities, S3-S4 can participate in a wide range of Talent Tasters that range from Construction, Hair Beauty, Factory Working, Law, Architect, Police, Nurse, Primary Teaching & Engineering. They use the Framework to reflect on skills developed. These individualised university visits, Talent Tasters and our flexible work experience opportunities have ensured that our young people are making informed choices about developing their skills to suit their future careers.

The totality of this work means that young people are therefore more able to sustain a positive destinations.

Parkhill Enterprise Academy⤴

from @ Education Scotland's Learning Blog

The Enterprise Academy at Parkhill Secondary School was formally opened to pupils in August 2017.

It is a vibrant initiative that supports young people with Additional Support Needs into positive and sustained destinations.

DYW Case Study

This is part of Parkhill Secondary School but is also available to pupils across Glasgow schools. Courses focus on vocational areas where there are opportunities for young people with Additional Support Needs to gain employment. At Parkhill they focus on the individual needs of every young person. The Enterprise Academy allows them to build on the interest and aspirations of the young people by helping them to develop new skills for work and future career choices.

Several rooms in the school were transformed as part of the development. These are, professional kitchen, café area, hotel bedroom and office training room. A boot room was also added to the already established horticulture area. These areas allow the school to offer realistic work environments where young people can develop skills for learning, life and work.

The Enterprise Academy works in partnership with colleges (Glasgow Kelvin and City of Glasgow) and has business partnerships, it 7 courses at present focusing on 3 key areas of Hospitality; Horticulture and Administration, this is a range of the courses available:

Introduction to Hotel Skills
NPA Professional Cookery Level 3
Culinary Ability (only centre in Scotland delivering this)
National 5 Practical Cookery
SVQ Level 1 Horticulture
NPA Level 4 Horticulture
NPA Administrative Activities.

These courses are delivered by college lecturers and teachers which offer the young people realistic vocational pathways into careers where there are opportunities open to them. The courses have been selected to reflect the interest and needs of young people working at SCQF levels 3 and 4/5.

One of the key successes of the Enterprise Academy is that it offers young people a safe and nurturing environment in which to learn, thus offering a bridge between school and college.

The school has worked closely with business partners Milnbank Housing Association, Hilton Glasgow and Radisson Red to develop a robust programme of exciting and innovative activities aimed at enhancing the employability of all pupils involved with the school and Enterprise Academy. This has included industry visits and supporting young people with activities in the school. They hosted a Business Breakfast in the school to help promote the Enterprise Academy and the pupils presented at this to inform them of future ideas along with showcasing skills that they have developed.

Furthermore the established work placements are incorporated into their timetable and are working very well. These have mainly been in the hotel kitchen and have proven to be very beneficial to the development of their skillset. Work placements are also supported by an ENABLE Employment co-ordinator.

The school undertook a project to examine how the work of the Enterprise Academy and the school’s partnerships reflect the Career Education Standards. The Enterprise Academy has also been a focus for an international ERASMUS + exchange programme which started in May 2017. The programme focuses on the hospitality and hotel skills classes. 6 Young people along with 2 teachers visit Nuremberg in Germany with a reciprocal visit to Glasgow allowing the young people to develop their skills in this area. They have secured funding for another 2 years and are in process of planning the next exchange which is extremely exciting for the school, this has worked very well and they look forward to being part of this international project again.

Parkhill Secondary School is a school for young people with Additional Support Needs and therefore Inclusion is always a key focus of the school. All of the young people who attend the school have some form of barrier to learning, many are on the Autism Spectrum whilst others have global learning difficulties. The Enterprise Academy gives the young people a structured and supportive framework to be able to access vocational opportunities and therefore positive and sustained destinations. One of the central aims of the Enterprise Academy is to ensure that all young people are given the best chance to enter employment and to develop their skills.

A very high number of the young people come from SIMD 1-4 backgrounds and have Free Meal Entitlement and therefore the school and the Enterprise Academy are acutely aware of the need to ensure parents and carers are not asked to supplement their son/daughter’s education and cover all costs through other funding.

Every young person who starts at the Enterprise Academy is given an induction where the expected behaviour in the school building is explained to them. This helps to address issues such diversity and equality, especially as many of the young people in the school can be very vulnerable.

The Monitoring Impact group is monitoring the impact both on leavers destinations which has been reviewed and is now looking at individual targets for each pupil. They provide data regarding destinations of leavers and it has been recorded through Career Interviews that more young people are identifying potential career paths in line with the key areas. Furthermore, in S1-3 young people have shown much greater interest in the 3 key areas of Academy.

The Enterprise Academy has helped raise the profile of the school through features on websites, media and is active on social media. This in turn has had a huge effect on the confidence of the young people.

The school have been encouraging parents to get involved in many ways and they have shown a keen interest throughout the establishment its development including being on a Steering group and have been invited to take part in a number of events. Parents have also attended visits to Hilton and Radisson Red to help raise their understanding of the kinds of vocational opportunities their young people may be able to access in the future, they also have a pilot programme with Hi (Hub International) which will deliver workshops to parents.

The school staff members have had CPD opportunities to be up-skilled in Horticulture and attended “Buddy Days” in the Hilton Hotel. These have been invaluable as they now have knowledge and skills which enable them to support and assist in the delivery of lessons. Also, by ensuring that the business partners have been involved in the process of the establishment and continuous development of the Academy, this has fostered a real feeling of ownership for the project and an understanding of the aims. This has also given a great sense of achievement to all involved.

DYW – Quick Start Guide⤴

from @ Education Scotland's Learning Blog

The following information outlines the core essentials around DYW, in order to provide a quick overview and introduction to support  planning and implementation.  It includes the following sections:

  • What DYW is? – Introduction
  • What are the key priorities? – DYW essentials
  • Key Resources

What is Developing the Young Workforce?

Developing the Young Workforce is a seven year programme to reduce youth unemployment by 40% by 2021.
 The national milestones are set out in Scotland’s Youth Employment Strategy.  The programme is built on the CfE entitlements for children and young people set out in 2008 in Building the Curriculum 3.  DYW is a key education policy, as highlighted by John Swinney at consecutive SLF addresses : “Our education policy is enshrined by three major policies, Getting it Right for Every Child, Curriculum for Excellence and Developing Scotland’s Young Workforce.” (SLF 2017) A focus on STEM sits at the heart of DYW. The Digital Learning and Teaching Strategy, Making Maths Count report and  STEM Strategy for Scotland  will contribute useful and relevant insights.  DYW has a particular and significant contribution to make in realising the Scottish Attainment Challenge outcomes, in particular priority 4: Improvement in employability skills and sustained, positive school-leaver destinations for all young people.

DYW Essentials:   What are the key DYW priorities ?

1. The Career Education Standard (CES 3-18):     Read the Career Education Scotland (3-18).  This document contains the key entitlements and expectations around DYW in education and provides guidance for planning and progression.

Reflective question:

  • To what extent am I familiar with the entitlements and expectations outlined within the CES 3-18?
  • To what extent do I use the CES 3-18 to plan relevant and coherent learning experiences?

2. Education -Employer Partnerships:    Establishments need to continue to develop sustainable partnerships with employers, businesses and colleges, which will enable the delivery of meaningful work-related and work-based learning opportunities.

Reflective question:

  • What type of education-employer partnerships do I currently have in place?
  • How do I ensure that these partnerships are effective and sustainable?
  • To what extent do the partnerships contribute to the curriculum design and delivery?

3. Curriculum design:   Embed DYW consistently across all that is planned for children and young people throughout education, ie. within the curriculum,  through interdisciplinary Learning, Personal Learning and Achievement and  the life and ethos of the school as a community.  For more information see Scotland’s Curriculum Refresh Narrative.   Resources for teachers and practitioners can be access on My World of Work.

In secondary schools learner pathways should be planned to reflect the needs and aspirations of young people and offer a diverse range of tailored learning programmes from BGE into the senior phase.  This should draw on a wide range of work-related courses such as Foundation Apprenticeships, Skills for Work modules, HNCs etc delivered in collaboration with colleges, training provides and employers alongside traditional subject choices.

Reflective question

  • How effectively do you plan for career education opportunities and progression pathways for learners in your school?
  • In what ways does the curriculum provision and timetabling in your establishment incorporate career education for all learners?

4.  Connect learning with the world of work:  Whenever relevant learning should be linked to careers, the labour market, employability both theoretically as well as practically.    Education establishments should therefore create work-related learning opportunities for all learners from early years to senior phase.  This may include career insight, work  inspiration, enterprise, simulated  work environments connections.   Work-based learning should be provide to all learners aqs and when required, particularly however in the senior phase.  The implementation of the Work Placement Standard should be an integral element of this.

Reflective question:

  • To what extent do I plan and incorporate work-related learning opportunities across the curriculum
  • To what extent are partners involved in delivering meaningful, work-related experiences for learners,  the delivery of skills and qualifications and highlighting prospective career opportunities?
  • To what extent do all learners our have access to relevant work-based learning experiences and palcements.

5. Improvement Planning:  DYW should be included within the establishment improvement plan and the targets should be realistic and manageable and able to be overtaken in one school year. External partners, such as employers, community learning and development and colleges, and parents should be part of the improvement planning process.  However the voice of young people  should be clear in the establishment improvement plan.   All DYW activity and targets should be clearly focussed on outcomes for learners.

Reflective question:

  • What impact are improvement measures having on learning, success, achievement, confidence, positive destinations and so on?

6. Skills:   There should be a clearer focus on enabling children and young people to recognise and track their own skills development and achievements across their learning.

Reflective Questions:

  •  How effective are profiling processes across the school/establishment?
  • To what extent do I provide opportunities to engage in profiling that supports learning and the development of skills for work and future career choices?
  • How well do I engage children and young people in meaningful discussion about their achievement within and outwith school, the development of their skills and assist them in profiling these to support their career journeys?

7.  Equalities and Inclusion:   Planning for DYW should address issues of equity, equality and inclusion. This includes: addressing parity of esteem across all types of learning and future destinations; challenging gender stereotyping; and meeting the specific needs of young people with additional support needs, from black and minority ethnic communities and those with experience of living in care.

Reflective question:

  • To what extent is our DYW offer inclusive of all learners and challenges stereotypes and bias with regard to gender, race/ethnicity, disability and learners with additional support needs ?

Resources to help you:

Next steps

  • Sign up for Education Scotland’s DYW e-newsletter
  • Find DYW news and information on the Education Scotland Learning Blog
  • Follow us on Twitter, https://twitter.com/ESskills @ESSkills

DYW – Support Offer⤴

from @ Education Scotland's Learning Blog

In these unprecedented times Education Scotland would like to ensure you continue to get the professional support you may require around DYW over the next months.

the following will provide you with an offer of key professional online support:

  1.  A quick start guide to DYW: This includes the key essential around DYW such as main documents, key links to latest information and updates.
  2.  Professional learning and reflection tools:  here you find all the essential tools and learning modules collated in one area.
  3. Career, Information, Advice and Guidance – My World of Work:  This is Skills Development Scotland’s online support hub for teachers and practitioners as well as learners .  It contains classroom resources, Labour Market Information, guidance on Meta – and Career Management Skills amongst a range of other interactive and engaging resources
  4.  Online professional dialogue – virtual meetings:  We have set up 3 session for teachers and practitioners to ‘get together’ in order  to share their DYW experiences, exchange information and discuss challenges.
  5.  National Improvement Hub – DYW  Summary Page:  This website page contains all our resources, tools, exemplification etc. in one place.  .

For more information on the above please follow the links.

If you have any specific questions please don’t hesitate to contact us directly at:  EDSDES@educationscotland.gov.scot