How does LifeSkills support careers education in Wales?

What key education frameworks and qualifications can LifeSkills support?  

We have mapped LifeSkills content to the current national curriculum in Wales to enable educators to use the resources in different subject areas. Look at our Content curriculum guide to find lesson materials and independent learning resources for students that support your curriculum delivery. As the new curriculum comes online, we will be updating these resources to reflect the six Areas of Learning and other educational statutory guidance.

At Key Stage 4 and post 16 education, LifeSkills is ideally suited to help support the Skills Challenge Certificate (SCC), often studied as part the Welsh Baccalaureate Qualifications.  The SCC comprises of four components:

• Individual project (50%)
• Enterprise and employability challenge (20%)
• Global citizenship challenge (15%)
• Community challenge (15%)

LifeSkills is particularly useful in supporting the SCC with its emphasis on employability skills including resources that help students make the link between their strengths and future career choices.

As well as curriculum subjects and careers, LifeSkills content can support delivery across upper primary and all of secondary in specific areas of the National Literacy and Numeracy Framework (LNF), especially around financial education and listening skills.  It also supports PSE, with regards to wellbeing and safe use of social media and can support schools in achieving their whole school approach to mental health and wellbeing.

How can LifeSkills support my school/college’s careers provision?

If you lead and coordinate delivery of careers and employability across your organisation, this Delivering employability skills across your school presentation and delivery notes are packed with useful insights and tips. You can deliver to colleagues in your school, to help them embed employability into their subjects and departments and develop a consistent whole-school approach to preparing your young people for the future workplace.

Furthermore, LifeSkills can help your school/college support the Welsh Government’s Employability Plan and deliver an effective Careers and World of Work programme to help increase the number of leavers who successfully go on to education, employment or training. A key principle of the Careers and the World of Work Framework is that aspirations should not be limited to paid employment: the ways in which young people will add to the wealth of Wales will be many and varied. LifeSkills offers content that support the range of paths young people might take:

• Putting enterprise skills into practice whilst building knowledge around what it means to be an entrepreneur, with a suite of content to support with an enterprising mindset, business innovation, sustainability and how to start a business. 
• Volunteering their skills for the betterment of their community (try the Social action toolkit for inspiration and activities)

If you are working towards the Careers Wales Mark[1] (designed by Careers Wales to recognise an educational establishment’s commitment to continuous quality improvement) you may find LifeSkills content can support you to fill gaps identified at your audit stage, helping you to achieve your accreditation.

[1]https://careerswales.gov.wales/careers-professionals/the-careers-wales-mark

How does LifeSkills support students with diverse needs?

The Careers and the World of Work Framework states that ‘learning providers must work to reduce environmental and social barriers to inclusion and offer opportunities for all learners to achieve their full potential in preparation for further learning and life’.

LifeSkills offers specific resources for students with Additional Learning Needs (ALN) and those in care who are preparing for their post-school transition. These can help support students to set goals and prepare for the workplace. LifeSkills includes a core set of lessons adapted for young people aged 14+ with ALN, and a navigation guide to explain how the content has been adapted.

We’ve also created a suite of financial education resources for young people leaving care to help them prepare for independent living. You can find these by selecting the ‘care leavers’ filter options on the LifeSkills Lesson plans page.

LifeSkills offers content specially designed for supporting adult learners, including those at risk of becoming unemployed. You may also find some of the resources for young people are useful in working with adults – check out this guide to supporting adult learners.

How can I use LifeSkills to build inclusivity in the classroom?

Teaching diversity and inclusion is important as it helps students recognise and celebrate what makes us different to benefit themselves and their future workplaces. This broadly aligns with the third of the four purposes of the new curriculum which aims for children and young people to become ‘ethical, informed citizens’ who, among other things:

• Are knowledgeable about their culture, community, society and the world
• Engage with contemporary issues
• Respect the needs and rights of other, as member of a diverse society

LifeSkills has developed a suite of diversity resources to support students to develop their understanding of diversity and inclusion, including how this will help them succeed in the world of work.

Watch our online lesson film around racial equality in the workplace or listen to five short audio case studies exploring different topics around gender, LGBTQ+, culture, age and disability.

What do educators in Wales say they value about LifeSkills?

"Using LifeSkills resources, particularly the Wheel of strengths, students get a lot of like clarity from it. Before we use it they all say, I haven't got any skills. And I say, ‘just answer these questions’. They worry ‘what if I'm not any of them?’, to which I reply just answer the ones that you are then, and we'll work backwards from there. There's a lot of self-doubt, like ‘I'm rubbish at everything’. Using the resources gives them a bit of confidence,… a bit of morale.

Then they come to other people and go ‘Oh, I'm good at that’…or they might be the opposite and they begin to learn to draw on others who have different strengths. They begin to learn from each other and work together.”

Lecturer working with Level 1 students (school leavers), FE college, Wales

How can LifeSkills be delivered and used alongside other careers resources?

LifeSkills content can be used alongside materials provided by Careers Wales and those found on Hwb[1], the Welsh Government’s online platform for schools, learners and parents/carers, to build a stable careers programme. LifeSkills focuses on helping students develop their confidence, knowledge and employability skills, which in turn helps them make informed careers decisions and engage with other careers support on offer. Themes such as building a growth mindset and wellbeing complement the skills-based content, to ensure young people are mentally prepared for their next step.

Educators can use the content in lessons, form periods, assemblies and careers days. You can also direct young people to use LifeSkills independently for homework tasks, holiday projects or as part of transition preparation.

Parents/carers are also able to access, adapt and use LifeSkills content to prepare their children for the world of work when teaching them at home whether that be to support homework, for brief periods of home learning or for full time home education.

Careers Advisers can use the resources in independent guidance sessions, with tools such as the Wheel of Strengths acting as effective conversation starters.

LifeSkills also has materials to support parents and carers to help their children develop employability skills, knowledge and aspirations, via the Families hub.

Where can I find out more?

• Go to the Explore more section on our website to discover how to start building LifeSkills content into your careers programme
• Use our Content curriculum guide to see how you can use LifeSkills resources as part of your lessons across the curriculum
• Discover how LifeSkills can help you support others build skills to thrive in today's rapidly changing work environment with our new Educator CPD, Support & Blogs section
• Start building your students core transferable skills with our seven core transferable skills lessons
• Learn how to get recognition for your school or college’s skills programme with the LifeSkills Award

[1]https://hwb.gov.wales/