Researchers, futurists and those in the human resource profession agree that the future world of work will be influenced by things like technology, globalisation and population ageing. But it is soft skills – also known as human, life or employability skills – that are deemed by professionals to be as important, if not more so, than hard or technical skills in the modern day workplace.

The irony is, soft skills are actually really hard to develop. To get good at them takes time and lots and lots of practice. It’s the development of these soft skills in the K-12 context that I will talk about in this blog.

Why Soft Skills Matter

To successfully function in all aspects of one’s life, soft skills like communication, collaboration, critical thinking and creativity – also known as the 4Cs – are important. That’s because organisations with employees that have them are, amongst other things, more harmonious and productive.

But of all the soft skills out there, what are the ones that employers desire most in those they hire?

Time and time again, it’s the 4C’s, decision making, resilience, confidence, emotional intelligence, time management and cultural awareness that top the lists.

And it’s these skills that should be the focus in any soft skills programme that is developed in a K-12 context.

The Best Ways To Develop These Skills

It’s no good talking about the importance of soft skills if we don’t understand the best ways to develop them in young people.

Here the research is pretty clear about the most effective way to develop these skills: explicit instruction and extracurricular activities.

Explicit teaching of soft skills in a classroom is more effective than implicit teaching approaches. But what does that actually look like? In real terms, it means bite-sized explicit teaching activities and continued practice. Which means that even secondary teachers should be able to manage this within crowded curriculums.

Extracurricular activities, however, are more challenging. That’s because there are substantial socioeconomic gaps in access to extracurricular activities. Therefore it won’t surprise you to learn that young people with the best soft skills usually come from independent schools.  

What Interventions Work Best?

According to research conducted by The Sutton Trust, the programmes that have been trialed and look promising at developing soft skills in young people include:

• Teacher training. Training teachers to improve mindsets and resilience in their students, either in pre-service training or as professional development.

• Structured after-school clubs. This can include music, sports or social clubs.

• Social action activities. These can be community or school-based.

• Social and emotional learning programmes.

Next Steps

Soft skills development should be at the heart of every education system. Education systems in Singapore and Canada are placing increasing importance on character development within their curriculum.

Although it would be great if both the UK government prioritised this also, in the short term there are things that schools can do.

A more focussed whole school approach to the development of these skills is needed – and possible. The development of soft skills should and can be part of the day-to-day curriculum.  

As a former curriculum coordinator at a secondary school, I can tell you that this is possible. But this type of initiative needs to have support from administration. Teachers need to have time to not only understand why it’s important, but more importantly to show them what explicit teaching of these skills looks like. 

For instance, to be a good communicator, you need to be good at a number of communication skills, like listening, reading and writing. These skills can be further broken down into things like active listening.

When we break these important soft skills down into more manageable chunks, explicit teaching of these skills in any context doesn’t look so daunting, does it?

Explore Further

 “We must put values and character development at the core of our education system.” Singaporean Education Minister Heng Swee Keat

If you’re at all interested in reading more about this, here are some useful links to get you started.

Character and Citizen Education Singapore

Global Education and Skills Forum

OECD Education 2030

The Sutton Trust – Life Lessons: Improving Essential Life Skills for Young People

World Economic Forum 2017 – Preparing People for the Future of WWorld Economic Forum – Ten Best Countries for Skills and Education

This is a positive step towards meaningful assessment; a concept that strives for assessments that focus on the student developing academically and gaining real skills. This is different to learning to recite set content and allows teachers to effectively assess whether their students are improving and if not, where the areas for improvement lie. 

What is ‘Intent, Implementation and Impact’?

Intent focuses on the aims of education. Ofsted wishes to move away from creating a ‘conveyor belt’ style education where tests form the key purpose. Instead, they emphasise the importance of asking ‘what do we want to achieve?’. Schools must therefore demonstrate a varied curriculum that displays their commitment to providing an enriching educational programme that will benefit learners academically; not simply teach students how to pass the next test.

Implementation aims to expand this by ensuring that the curriculum is providing the broader content required. This means providing just as much focus on other subjects, as it does for core ones, and offering a wider curriculum that focuses on overall enrichment; requiring focus on the process of learning rather than just the outcomes. 

Finally, impact considers how effective these new methods are at engaging young people in learning by assessing whether they have developed their knowledge and skills, and whether they are interested in their studies, creating a far more holistic approach than previously.

How can we achieve this?

As with the delivery of most educational approaches, its success relies upon teachers being at the helm when deciding what form of assessment is right for their class. By incorporating a blend of formative, summative and unit assessments, and by employing a more personalised approach, teachers can track areas students need to work on and set tasks accordingly.  

This can, of course, be difficult, especially given the stretching workloads many teachers already face. However, by utilising online resources such as EducationCity, which now provides over 90 Assessments across English, maths and science, which are automatically marked, generate corrections and revision pathways for each child based on their specific answers, pressure can be alleviated. Teachers can decide which assessments are right for their class, set them accordingly and use the curriculum-correlated content within the revision pathways to address the areas that students need to develop.

Education is about setting young people up with the very best start to life and a vital part of this is meaningful assessment; stepping away from the one-size-fits-all model will ensure each student can achieve their very best. 

For more information or to take a free trial for your school, please visit https://www.educationcity.com.