What is the impact of a Skills Building and Citizenship session?
Soft skills are integral to any workplace, professional environment or business setting. Whilst these skills are learned indirectly through daily interactions throughout a young person’s broad general education, there is an increasing focus on the significance and development of emotional intelligence, communication skills, interpersonal skills, language skills, personal habits, cognitive or emotional empathy, and leadership traits. These soft skills are crucial in supporting a child’s development towards their readiness to work.
The school environment is one of the few opportunities in a person’s lifetime where they will be surrounded by others within the same age group, sharing many similar experiences and communicating within the same circles. The soft skills, communication skills and interpersonal skills acquired in these formative years will be called upon increasingly as a child moves towards higher education or employment, but the stakes and expectations rise too. Findings show that “schools provide the safest environment to test some of these skills” (Ee and Change, 2015)and it is consequently not an opportunity which schools can afford to pass by, when considering how to best provide for their pupils.
Bringing in a business leader from the community helps to reinforce the keys skills that young people are practicing on a daily basis in the classroom. For example, it allows a young person to make a connection between a skill they use in Maths to a skill that is required in the world of work.