A collaborative approach to trackin acheivement with a focus on skills in Alva Academy: Conclusion and next steps
This pilot demonstrates the importance of young people having access to personal achievement opportunities across their school and community. Through participation they develop a range of skills while also improving their wellbeing, knowledge, resilience and social connections.
The National Youth Work Outcomes and Skills Framework is a valuable tool in supporting young people to notice and articulate what they develop through participation in personal achievement opportunities across a wide range of learning experiences. It also provides a straightforward common language that enables teachers and youth workers to build a compelling picture of young people’s achievements within school and community-based settings.
The pilot shows that practitioners who originate from different sectors can successfully utilise the framework and do so in partnership. This approach grew practitioners own understanding of skills and allowed the language of skills to be better incorporated into their practice.
Young people involved in the pilot stated a number of positives from using the Framework within their activities and groups across school and community contexts. As there was consistency within the approach across different settings, they felt more confident in the language, the meaning and development of skills within their own lives. Importantly, young people were able to reflect on what skills they had made progress in and could articulate how this contributed to their personal and future goals.
Youth work practitioners showed expertise in supporting young people explore and articulate their skills, while helping them notice when they are making progress. Teachers learned from this expertise and gained confidence in utilising a skills language, sharing ideas on gathering evidence and introducing quality conversations into their practice with young people.
This pilot links closely with several of the recommendations within the Independent review of qualifications and assessment and the Independent Review of the Skills Delivery Landscape. The approach demonstrates a practical way in which skills language can be integrated with the personal achievements of young people. It shows that these elements can be profiled successfully and tangibly across a learning community.
There are clear opportunities for this approach to be further developed and trialled with other learning communities. The approach is currently being cascaded to another setting with the process being led by the CLD youth work practitioner within the school with initial capacity-building support from YouthLink Scotland and Education Scotland. This is being seen as an essential step to improve its success and sustainability.
To support the facilitation of this approach in other settings, YouthLink Scotland have created a national toolkit with information and guidance based on the evidence from the pilot in Alva.
