What is the Personal Skills Programme?

The Personal Skills Programme (PSP) is an accredited, innovative, whole-school approach to developing skills and building character in students that helps them to realise their potential.

Extensive research amongst teachers and senior leaders revealed the following results:

We have designed five progressive awards, that makes up a whole-school PSP Programme. The programme supports students aged 11 - 16 to develop the skills and behaviours needed to support them through their next steps in education or employment.

Click on the awards below to find out more. 

 

How can the PSP be delivered?

Schools have the option to deliver the PSP programme in different ways to suit your own context: -

• across all year groups
• as individual awards to targeted groups
• linking to the School’s Development Plan

How you deliver the programme is down to you, as you have the flexibility to:

• embed it as part of your timetabled curriculum i.e.; PHSE lessons
• include as part of a whole-school extra-curricular day,
• Plan a leadership day
• Incorporate activities into year group residentials

The list above is not exhaustive and provide just some ideas of delivery models that could be considered.

Each award requires a total of 10 hours of teaching time, that can be delivered in 60-minute bite-size sessions.

Schools will receive a set of comprehensive resources for tutors to use to deliver the award as well as a Skills Passport for students to complete, which is designed to help track students’ progress throughout each award and demonstrate their competencies and achievements. Please visit the individual award pages for sample resources.

And all Centres delivering our qualifications have access to Skills Tracker, our online application for measuring and monitoring learners’ confidence in their skills throughout their courses.

The benefits to students

Students undertaking the PSP programme will:

• Develop their confidence and resilience to feel and be a part of their school environment
• Work on becoming an active part of their school community
• Identify and reflect upon their potential career journey
• Develop their competence across all 5 leadership skills mapped to the SLQ Skills Framework

The benefits to teachers

• Easy to use, comprehensive, digital resources for teachers
• Evidence to support Ofsted’s outcomes for character and personal development without creating additional workload for busy teaching staff
• Opportunity to deliver individual awards, which you can build into a whole school offer over time
• E-certificates that students can upload to digital platforms to evidence their achievements

Take a look at our case study from one of our Pioneer PSP Centres - North Bromsgrove High School available under the Links section.

Accreditation & Assessment of the programme

Each award within the PSP programmes is accredited by SLQ, the regulating Awarding Organisation with 40 years’ experience in building leadership and life skills in young people.

As part of SLQ’s commitment to schools we will:

• deliver an Approved Programme Centre webinar for the Programme Coordinator to attend, this is designed to support you through the accreditation process and give Coordinators the opportunity to ask any questions about the programme
• provide a tutor resource orientation video that can be accessed by any member of staff delivering the programme
• assign a designated Relationship Manager to support throughout the programme delivery and discuss your leadership delivery plans for future academic years
• schedule a Delivery Standards Review meeting, on completion of the programme, with the Programme Coordinator to review the delivery of the programme and review a sample of the completed Skills Passports
• process the PSP Programme E-Certificates via a secure link

How the PSP programme is assessed

As part of the assessment process for each award, students are assessed against five skills in the SLQ Skills Framework:

These specific skills have been identified as the five most valued skills following research with Youth Employment UK.

The activities within the resources are designed around each skill and will provide tutors with ample opportunities to assess against these skills. Tutors will be expected to provide feedback within the students’ skills passport and date when each skill was demonstrated – see feedback sheet sample below:

What does the PSP Programme cost to deliver?

We have broken the PSP Programme down into cost-effective academic year licences for schools to purchase:

• PSP Full Learning Programme (all 5 awards) - £2000
• PSP KS3 (S3) Learning Programme (Pioneer/Ambassador/Influencer) - £1200
• PSP KS4 (S4) Learning Programme (Skills Pathfinder/Skills Reflection) - £800
• Pioneer Award - £399
• Ambassador Award - £399
• Community Influencer Award - £399

Click here to purchase the Personal Skills Programme.

Alternatively, to register your interest to find out more about the Personal Skills Programme and how it can work in your organisation – please complete the form below.