Skills for Learning, Life and Work – Education Scotland Guidance
Curriculum for Excellence is designed to provide all children and young people with opportunities for developing:
Skills for Learning
Skills for Life
Skills for Work
There are various definitions of ‘skills’. Broadly, a skill is defined as an activity that a learner undertakes, can do again, can apply to different circumstances, and can improve over time.
Key skills open the door to children’s progress; thinking skills show progression in cognitive development; personal skills include softer skills such as relationship-building as well as employability skills. These are skills that feature in Curriculum for Excellence learning and in wider achievement activities.
Hard and soft skills are needed in most jobs. Hard skills include the teachable, quantifiable abilities you need to do the job and will be reflected in your qualifications, soft skills are more difficult to measure. These can include teamwork, communication, conflict resolution and problem-solving abilities.
Then we come to meta-skills, these enable you to learn and build new skills faster. It also allows you to improve and develop other skills. Skills are temporary because they are learned and developed, and therefore can be forgotten and refreshed. By contrast, a meta-skill is a permanent part of you that enables you to achieve things. For example, while learning a language is a skill, the ability you develop to learn languages, thus making it easier for you to learn several, would be a meta-skill.
Skills will be key to a young person’s future employability as the career landscape changes over time.
Skills Development in Aberdeenshire Schools
Skills for Learning, Life and Work – Guidance for Schools can be found here.
My World of Work Career Options -What skills there are – Integrity
Skills Investment Plans
Working with employers and industry leadership groups, SDS has produced Skills Investment Plans. The plans focus on key issues for Scotland’s growth industries and provides information about what is being done to help.
Click here to find out more.
Learn Interview Skills
Click here to find advice on developing interview skills and building your CV.
School DYW Standards
Opportunity North East is the private sector catalyst driving transformational change to diversify north east Scotland’s economy.
More info here: Opportunity Northeast (ONE)
Education Scotland has published several key documents and related resources to support practitioners in realising the ambitions around DYW. There are various links contained within this section of the website that will provide relevant and up to date information.
Career Education Standard (3-18)
Work Placements Standard and benchmarking tool
The standard sets out the expectations for young people, parents, carers, employers, schools, and local authorities in advance, during and after a placement. Resources are in development to support schools and local authorities achieve the ambitions of the standard with the self-evaluation exercise and work placements toolkit already available on our website.
Click here to find out more about Work placements, work – related learning and find relevant up to date guidance and toolkits for practitioners.
School/Employer Partnership Guidance – for schools, employers, and local authorities
Meta-skills
The world of work is a changing environment, and we are required to change with it. Scotland needs people in its workforce who are resilient and able to thrive in an ever growing, ever-changing society. Our young people need to be equipped with the correct knowledge and skills to succeed and the Skills 4.0 | Skills Development Scotland helps practitioners to deliver these skills in a meaningful way across the curriculum. Skills 4.0 is a ‘skills model to drive Scotland’s future’ and adds value to the already excellent skills work going on in both our primary and secondary schools across Scotland.
Aberdeenshire School Clusters – Primary and Secondary
The following interesting practice examples are available on the National Improvement Hub. Click on the below links to find out more:
Digital Schools Award Scotland
The Digital Schools Award Scotland is a national award to promote, recognise and encourage a whole school approach to the use of digital technology in nursery, primary, special education, and secondary schools. Schools that successfully complete this programme will receive a nationally recognised Digital Schools Award accredited by Education Scotland.
There are many good practice exemplars from across Scotland. The following examples are available on the National Improvement Hub, Digi Learn Scotland and Skills Development Scotland websites. Click on the links to find out more.
- Digital Vision – Digi Learn (glowscotland.org.uk)
- Aberdeenshire – Digi Learn (glowscotland.org.uk)
- Practitioner Examples of Blended Learning in Primary – Webinar – Digi Learn (glowscotland.org.uk)
- Busby Primary School, East Renfrewshire looks at how building digital skills at an early age can impact on career readiness and be used across the curriculum to enhance learning and teaching.
- Dumfries and Galloway Primary School pupils have been expanding their career horizons with the help of new digital career education tools.
