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teachwire.net/secondary PA R T N E R C O N T E N T 43 Tom Ravenscroft talks about how we can ensure every young person is set up for success  “Essential skills matter more than ever” What is the Skills BuilderPartnership? The Skills Builder Partnership brings together educators, employers and youth organisations around a collective mission: to ensure that one day, everyone will build the essential skills they need to succeed.There are more than 500 schools and colleges, and 200 employers and organisations across the Partnership. We’re supporting them to embed a common, systematic and rigorous approach to explicitly building eight essential skills: Listening; Speaking; Problem Solving; Creativity; Staying Positive; Aiming High; Leadership; and Teamwork. Why those skills,andwhatmakes themessential now? These are the skills that bridge the gap between the classroom and the wider world.The same skills that are essential for effective learning make for successful employment in the future; joining up the journey from education through to employment is key.Jobs will change and the labour market will continue to shift, but we will always need effective communicators who can creatively solve problems, lead change and collaborate – hence the need to teach these skills to our children and students. Howcan these skills be built? Too often we neglect these skills in education, perhaps because we think that they’re innate.What we’ve seen over a decade, though, is that everyone can build these skills.We just need to break themdown into learnable chunks, and that’s what the Skills Builder Framework does.The Teamwork skill, for example, is made up of 16 learning steps, from taking turns through to managing conflict. Schools and colleges are being asked to do a lot at the moment.What support are you providing to teachers andparents? This is a particularly challenging and unprecedented period for schools and colleges.To support parents and carers we have set up a Home Learning Hub, where they can freely and easily access a suite of resources for building essential skills at home ( skillsbuilder.org/ homelearning ). For teachers, the Skills Builder Hub remains the best place to find teaching resources and see the impact of this learning across students of all ages ( skillsbuilder.org/hub ) . You’ve just launchedtheSkillsBuilder Accelerator2020–what’s that? The Skills Builder Accelerator is our year-long programme for schools and colleges. It’s delivered by our teamof qualified teachers, and we work really closely with every school and college involved.Together, we develop a complete implementation strategy, train teaching staff and equip everyone with the tools and resources to build essential skills effectively.You can find out more, and when the next application rounds are, at skillsbuilder.org/ accelerator . Need to know + Everyone needs eight essential skills to succeed, whatever their path in life + Skills Builder breaks down these eight essential skills into teachable chunks + Freely accessible resources help to build these essential skills in school or at home Contact: info@skillsbuilder.org @Skills_Builder skillsbuilder.org ABOUT TOM: Tom is the founder and CEO of the Skills Builder Partnership Q&A 30 SECOND BRIEFING Everyone needs eight essential skills to succeed, whatever their life path. The Skills Builder Partnership has developed a comprehensive approach to building them, with resources for teachers, a schools programme and a new Home Learning Hub for parents.