National Skills Week 2024

At Envision, the critical importance of essential skills is at the centre of everything we do. We’ve read the studies, heard the experts and seen with our own eyes how much a young person’s chances of success in education, work and life improve when they develop their communication, determination, creativity and teamwork. This National Skills Week we are celebrating all the benefits that come with essential skill development and showcasing how the Envision Programme catalyses this.

The ability to utilize and demonstrate the essential skills in school is fundamental to a young person’s ability to engage with their education. Effective and functional essential skills enable young people to engage positively with their teachers and peers and take a dynamic, persevering approach to overcoming challenges. We know that some groups of young people will face more challenges and barriers than others, which is why supporting the skills development of less-advantaged young people is particularly important in giving them the best chances of success. The essential skills provide a basis for educational success as well as a foundation for future success in the world of work. At Envision, we focus not only on growing skills, but also developing a young person’s ability to articulate how they have used and developed their skills in specific scenarios. This helps an individual recognize their personal growth and develop confidence, but also sets them up well for a contemporary world of work which is shifting its recruitment process to skills-based questioning, requiring quick thinking and clear expression. There is also evidence that these essential skills will mature with young people as they grow. Essential skills provide a basis for the development of more advanced skills such as leadership and critical thinking.

But we are not only interested in creating a productive workforce. The essential skills benefit young people beyond school and work. They are essential for developing and maintaining positive relationships and personal growth, as they shape how young people respond to others and engage with situations which push them beyond their comfort zone. Essential skills help create a rounded, efficacious individual.

During the Envision programme, young people have the chance to develop all four essential skills. In working as a group to design a social action project for their community, they first must think creatively about how they can have a positive impact on an issue in their school. They then flex their teamwork skills by combining their ideas to create project ideas, achievable goals and to allocate tasks. Though the journey is often a little bumpy, they quickly realise that they can achieve so much more as a team than as individuals. They also learn that working together requires clear and efficient communication, not just in speaking their thoughts but in listening well to what others have to share. And inevitably, they encounter problems along the way. Whether it be in their group dynamic, challenges in school bureaucracy, resource limitations or something else, implementing a project for the first time is rarely straightforward.  Young people in these situations are forced to push their determination skills by taking a positive approach to challenges they face and continuing to work towards ambitious goals, despite unforeseen obstacles. This short summary offers an overarching narrative of the skill development which takes place on the Envision programme, but it is highly simplistic. In reality, we know that the young people are developing all of their skills, in every session, as they work with new people, visit their mentors offices, challenge each other and work towards their goals.

As Programme Coordinators, we know that skill development comes with time and practice, but we also know that we can be particularly intentional to help our young people make the most of the relatively short amount of time we have with them. At the end of every session, we make space for the young people to creatively and interactively reflect on how they have used their skills during the past hour. This National Skills Week, perhaps you could take some time to reflect on the value the essential skills hold in your life, both professionally and personally.

Read more about how we developed our essential skills framework here.