Boosting your soft/employability skills – Y7, Y8 & Y9 (KS3)

Course description

This course enhances your knowledge of essential life and employability skills, giving you access to videos with materials and tools to download as well as a personalised certificate on completion.

Duration is estimated to be up to 7 hours; this is made up of 3 hours and 15 mins of actual video time, 45 mins of brainstorming across the videos when we discuss the skills associated with different roles, and potentially up to 3 hours of self-reflection and completion of the learning logs which will record your skills development. These logs will also support your applications processes, admissions processes or interviews when you are required to offer evidence based criteria to demonstrate your skills in the future.

As this course is targeted at students under 18, under the Udemy conditions you may only access the material if a parent or guardian opens the account, handles any enrollments/purchases and manages the account usage.

The course

The course is delivered by Key Stage group, making the content and delivery most appropriate to your age and requirements. Make sure you book on to the correct course; they are KS3 (Y7, Y8 and Y9), KS4 (Y10 and Y11), KS5 (Y12 and Y13). Job seekers should book on to the KS5 course. The training does not focus on any one industry, in every module we discuss a number of different workplace roles and the skills associated to it. In fact we discuss over 20 different types of roles and the skills associated to them over the entire course.

Over the years and across a number of businesses, I’ve led, managed, appraised, interviewed, coached and mentored hundreds of entry-level, junior and senior colleagues. I always had a feeling that new employees in their first or second role were not sufficiently work “savvy”, didn’t understand the need to impress their line managers and were ill-equipped to succeed. That is why I established BOOST Life Skills, a soft/employability skills training provider. We deliver training online and onsite to schools, academies and colleges throughout the UK and you now have the opportunity to benefit from the fantastic training material that we’ve pulled together.

BOOST have designed the content and delivery of our courses so that they’re appropriate for each age group. The training includes many short videos and you download a 21 page high quality PDF that you save and keep for future reference. You also download a “BOOST my Skills – Record of Achievement and Learning Log” for each soft/employability skill which can be maintained by yourself and built upon over time. Keeping these documents maintained will pay dividends in the future when it comes to applications processes, admissions processes or interviews and you are required to offer evidence based criteria to demonstrate your skills.

The course will take a minimum of 4 hours to complete, but depending on how much time you are prepared to spend on self-reflection, the brainstorms for the “what skills do these roles need to succeed?” exercises, additional note taking and completion of the Learning Logs, the duration could be up to 6-7 hours. You can complete the entire course at your own pace; access as many times as you like.

The learning objectives are to:

1. Understand the definitions of a range of soft/employability skills

2. Explore each soft/employability skill in detail, answering “what does good look like?”

3. Consider what it all means for you and what you might want to do differently in future

What you’ll learn – the modules:

1. Introduction to soft skills – why are employability skills so important?

2. Why do I need to be well organised?

3. How can I become more self-motivated?

4. Why does me being positive make a difference?

5. Why do I need to be good at solving problems?

6. Why do I need to be resilient?

7. Why do I need to have good communication skills?

In each soft/employability skills module you will:

1. Review the objective/learning outcomes

2. Understand the definition of the skill

3. Discuss different workplace roles and the skills associated to them

4. Learn about models to follow for good practice and “what good looks like” in the workplace

5. Think about some top tips for success within the skill

6. Brief external videos are used to back-up key learnings (in 5/7 modules)

7. Have some questions to consider about yourself; this self-reflection is very important

8. Complete your own “Record of Achievement and Learning Log”

9. Recap on key learnings

What you’ll download/receive:

1. PDF summary of each module, containing much of the content in points 1-7 above, enabling you to refer back to this high quality training in 6 weeks, 6 months and 6 years time.

2. BOOST my Record of Achievement and Learning Log for each module/skill (2-7) for you to adopt and develop demonstrating the events that have happened in relation to the soft/employability skill, the actions you’ve taken, what you’ve learnt and what you’ll try next time.

3. Certificate - On completion of the course a branded certificate is issued with your name included; this allows you to record your learnings as part of your personal development plan and achievements, keep for your own records and discuss with your form tutor, careers leader or line manager in a work environment, should you wish to do so.

Using our expertise to BOOST you!

BOOST delivered live online training during Summer 2020; when polled both before and after the training sessions with the question “rate your understanding of the trained skill and why it’s important in education and work places”, the results were stunning. Before the training, 37% said “I know a lot about this skill”, which rose dramatically to 93% after the training!

Why is all this important?

We know from talking to Industry Placement Leaders, 6th Form Directors, Careers Leaders and Recruiters that the development of these soft/employability skills make you more employable and better prepared for apprenticeships, the work place or further education. Today’s employers seek more than just academic qualifications with more importance being placed on soft/employability skills.

The Founder of BOOST (Richard Fawdry) worked at Director level in head office roles and in a number of retail business for over 25 years. Richard really understands the requirements of a balanced set of soft/employability and technical skills, as well as what makes an individual employable to a recruiter or for an apprenticeship. Significantly though, Richard also remembers feeling ill-equipped in his teenage years and early-20’s as he hadn’t yet learnt the employability skills required to succeed in the workplace. Some of the learning undoubtedly comes naturally with experiences and age, but much of the awareness and initial actions can be learnt. Richard has written and delivers this course; you will be learning from someone who has operated at Director level.

The development of soft/employability skills also provides you with a different balance and it’s arguable that you are then more able to create coping strategies when dealing with the stress and pressures of key exams and the work environment, leading to improved well-being and mental health. This is so important in itself!

Why are soft/employability skills so important?

Academic studying allows you to develop hard skills, the specific technical skills you need to do your job effectively. While these are the achievements you’ll list on your CV, today’s employers seek more than this with more importance being placed on soft/employability skills – personal attributes that enable you to interact well with other people.

The modern workplace is interpersonal and the future workplace will rely on soft/employability skills. Skills such as being well organised, becoming more self-motivated and positive, being good at solving problems, presenting ideas and communicating with team members are all highly valued in the modern workplace. Strong soft/employability skills ensure a productive, collaborative and healthy work environment and will contribute towards a business becoming more profitable.

These skills are closely linked with a person’s character. It takes a conscious effort, ongoing practice, and a commitment to self-development to improve your soft skills. Are you ready?

Technical skills are limited without a blend of soft/employability skills!

Technical skills may look impressive on your CV, but the soft/employability skills are what will set you apart from the many candidates who have similar expertise to you. As you start to enter your career phase and are employed by a business, either part-time or full-time, you will no doubt receive soft/employability skills training as well as technical skills training that the role requires. These are important paths to follow once employed, but you need to win the race to get the offer in the 1st place. In most jobs, technical skills alone are not enough to be truly effective. Here’s some examples:

· A salesperson with an unrivaled knowledge of their product and market will have little success if they don’t have the interpersonal skills needed to close deals and retain clients.

· A business manager needs to be able to listen to employees, have good speaking skills, and be able to think creatively.

· A doctor must undoubtedly have the right level of qualifications, but all of this must be balanced with a host of other skills in order to be effective. Doctors are often under substantial pressure and need the ability to solve problems and make effective decisions, which in-itself requires leadership and strong management skills. A doctor cannot “operate” without great communication skills, compassion and a good bedside manner!

· A builder will probably require a balance of physical and soft/employability skills. Undoubtedly, strength and stamina combined with building, architectural and mechanical knowledge, as well as maths, written and oral communication are all very important.