We all have different ideas of what exactly we define as key life-skills – whether that is literacy, financial knowledge, empathy, team-work or more besides.
What we can surely all agree on is that schools exist to equip young people with the skills they need to thrive outside education. By giving children the fundamentals today, they stand the best chance of remaining healthy and happy tomorrow.
Most educators agree that this is important. According to research in last year’s School report research, three-quarters of the UK teachers surveyed want to see the curriculum's approach to life-skills changed to better support pupils (Pearson, 2022).
Agree what’s most important
My staff feel that being able to communicate effectively and build healthy relationships is as important – if not more important – than achieving decent grades. We are not alone. The School report research revealed that teachers throughout England want the curriculum to develop a variety of life-skills including:
- Financial management (66%)
- Communication (66%)
- Resilience (63%)
- Kindness (61%)
- Self-esteem (61%)
- Tolerance of diverse opinions (58%)
At Kensington Primary School, we had a long consultation process to create what we now know as “Curriculum K”, speaking with children, staff, parents, and local businesses to look at what skills our children need.
Together we decided that these skills could be split in to four categories:
- Academic (the standard curriculum)
- Culture (art, music, creativity)
- Health (mental and physical)
- Communication (written, spoken, reading, etc)
These might look different for your school. Indeed, another school in our trust selected eight core skills, including leadership, empathy, and team-work.
Make space in the curriculum
The 25 weekly teaching hours schools have doesn’t give enough time to cover the 11 subjects, let alone much else – which is why it is crucial to look at where you are investing your time. In truth, we already let certain modules slide; something schools must consider when embedding life-skills. Do you want to prioritise financial management, for example? Realistically, you will need to strip out something else.
Perhaps your staff feel that Roman numerals, say, could give way to a session on savings. By that I am not saying that numerals are not important, just that schools need to be flexible to accommodate what we believe is most useful to our learners. Here follows eight of the skills that our Curriculum K prioritises.
1, Communication: Invite voices: Creating opportunities to give children a meaningful voice is a great way to encourage their communication skills. As well as encouraging pupils to communicate in class with friends and teachers, consider adding extra-curricular opportunities. In our trust, we formed a Pupil Parliament. This allows children to share their views in a safe and supported space on a trust-wide level and be part of the changes made to their education. They learn that their views are important, discover the value of listening and sharing, and start to understand how what they say can influence their community.
2, Self-esteem: Teach self-expression: By following guidance from specialist mental health organisations like Place2Be, we can also educate pupils on how to communicate what they are feeling – an important step in building their confidence and self-esteem for life. By making room for such training, we help pupils recognise emotions, name them, explore what causes them, and gain appropriate strategies to cope. We foster tolerance between pupils, who start to recognise when their peers are struggling and need support. In turn, their relationship-building skills are strengthened.
3, Collaboration: Include communities: Team-work is a core life-skill that can be taught in every class, depending on how lessons are structured. Outside class, schools can demonstrate the value of collaboration in a variety of ways, not least by modelling team-work between staff, between other schools, and with families too. Hosting a “Learn with your child” event, in which parents learn alongside their kids, is a fun example of collaboration in practice. Recently we had 100 parents join in with a physical health class, spreading the positive impact of physical wellbeing far and wide.
4, Resilience: Create challenge: It is generally children who struggle at school who tend to become the most resilient pupils, learning the value of perseverance. This means we need to get the balance of challenge right for learners who find things easier – if these children do not know how it feels to fail and strive, they are unlikely to develop that resilient attitude. At our trust, we talk about “teaching what’s in front of you”. Some pupils will naturally be great at certain skills; others not. It is therefore important that teachers have space and agency to work with differences, identifying where extra challenge is needed, and deviating from plans when necessary.
5, Autonomy: Identify needs: Agency is also a vital skill for pupils to grasp, and we teach this in different ways across the trust. For instance, rather than micromanaging behaviour through rewards and sanctions, we ask: what life-skills does that develop? Instead of focusing on minutiae like neat uniforms, we focus on how children engage with their work. When possible, give pupils a level of freedom in lessons to tackle tough questions alone. Don’t demand that they sit in rows at their desks, allow them to work on the floor, on lap tables, to move – whatever works. The important point is not that they are learning in traditional ways, but that they are learning. This also fosters agency and a better understanding of their unique needs.
6, Tolerance: Mix it up: Maintaining mixed ability groups is another way of strengthening core life-skills and we have found the benefits far outweigh that of ability grouping. When children learn within a diverse group, they naturally develop tolerance and understanding, along with other skills including communication and – for certain pupils – leadership. This environment also mirrors the world they are likely to encounter at secondary school and beyond into the world of work, making it great preparation for adulthood.
7, General skills: Go residential: We have found an emphasis on residentials to be helpful to development, too. Given the current financial climate, these must be organised sensitively so that every child can be included. In year 1, we run a film night, taking place at school, and finishing by 9pm. In year 2, we host an overnight stay in school. In later years we facilitate camping and youth hostel experiences. All help build character without a focus on grades.
8, Connection: Seek support: Overall, we champion life-skills not only within our trust, but among a national community. As a founding member of the Well Schools programme, a network of more than 1,300 schools, I can thoroughly recommend this free source of information and resources, putting life-skills at the heart of education.
Final thought
Together we have learned that there are many ways to embed life-skills. And while I stand by the decisions we have made; I know there are other pathways. It is clear – what children needed from schools 20 to 30 years ago, let alone 100 years ago, has radically changed. We now need a radical rethink, to ensure we are enabling learners to meet tomorrow’s challenges and opportunities.
- Ben Levinson is headteacher of Kensington Primary School in London. He is also lead for school development, growth, assessment, safeguarding and wellbeing at The Tapscott Learning Trust.
Further information & resources
- Pearson: School report, 2022: https://bit.ly/3mfpz4n
- Well Schools programme: www.well-school.org