Welcome to Newingate School
Module 3: 21st Century Skills
Introduction to (Year 2) Module 3:
This module consists of 6 weeks of learning:
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Week 1: What are 21st Century Skills and why are they important?
Week 2: Exploring the 12 21st Century Skills
Week 3: 21st Century Skills within the Curriculum
Week 4-5: Applying and Embedding 21st Century Skills in the Classroom
Week 6: Sharing with Colleagues - Leading Professional Development.
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The Learn that... and Learn how to statements covered within this module are captured on the ECF Induction Programme mapping document.
Week 1: What are 21st Century Skills?
This week will focus identifying what 21st Century Skills are, and why these are important to be teaching within our schools and developing with our students.
Time this week is focused on evidence and research and reflection and discussion as you will be applying this to practice across week 3-5.
Teachers' Standards:
Reflection and Discussion
Take a moment to reflect - without glancing forward in this learning (that would be cheating!!!)
What might we mean when we talk about 21st Century Skills?
What might these skills be?
Without having explored 21st Century Skills, and therefore going with your gut instinct, do you believe that these are explicitly taught within the National Curriculum? or do you teach them within your own classroom?
Make a note, on paper or just in your mind of your responses.
Evidence and Research:
"21st Century skills are 12 abilities that today's students need to succeed in their careers...
...These skills are intended to help students keep up with the lightening pace of today's modern markets. Each skill is unique in how it helps students, but they all have one quality in common: they are essential in the age of the Internet". (Hummel, 2024)
I would put forward an argument that these are not solely skills to support students in their careers but essential skills to be able to effectively and successfully navigate life and to make a positive contribution to society.
There are some key reasons to ensure that 21st Century Skills are part of the curriculum and actively taught within schools.
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(Buckle, n.d)
Take a moment to watch this short video that introduces 21st Century Skills and explores the benefits as well as challenges of introducing these into education.
From the outset, it is important to acknowledge that there are different versions, and indeed, numbers of 21st Century Skills that are used across differing countries and indeed organisations. You will notice that despite the differences there is often strong alignment with skills such as technological skills, collaboration and creativity featuring in most versions that are used.
At Newingate School, we refer to 21st Century Skills as those outlined by iCEV and it is these 12 skills that we will refer to and use for this module and within our teaching across the school.
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Three Categories of 21st Century Skills
iCEV split 21st Century Skills into 3 categories:
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Learning Skills
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Literacy Skills
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Life Skills
Under each category there are specific skills: (click on the image to access a printable version of the 21st Century Skills - you may want to use these in your teaching and/or display within your classroom).
Think back to your initial reflection, did you identify any of these 12 skills as 21st Century Skills?
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Reflection and Discussion
Thinking about these 12 21st Century Skills.
Consider which are most important to teach within your own setting and classroom. To do this you will complete a Diamond 9.
A Diamond 9 activity is an ideal activity to encourage critical thinking and decision making and a great tool to use with you students (and can be applied to many topics).
You will have received a set of Diamond 9 cards as part of this module from your ECT Mentor (please return them after completing this activity).
The instructions for completing the diamond 9 are below
Apply critical thinking skills to developing your Diamond 9 alongside the needs of your students and the objectives and values of Newingate School.
Do this on your own - take a photo of your Diamond 9 and take this to your weekly mentor meeting - do not share this with them until...
Also take your Diamond 9 cards to your mentor meeting and do the same exercise with your mentor - here you will need to collaborate and communicate as well as think critically. You will also need to be flexible and demonstrate elements of leadership as you would through the exercise - are these skills familiar??????
Then show your mentor your initial Diamond 9 (the photo) - how do the two differ? Why might these be? Which do you agree with most personally?
References
Buckle, J. (no date) A comprehensive guide to 21st century skills. Available at: https://www.panoramaed.com/blog/comprehensive-guide-21st-century-skills
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Helpful Professor (2024) 21st Century Learning. Available at: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aisOouTDATM
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Hummel, B. (2024) What Are 21st Century Skills? Available at: https://www.icevonline.com/blog/what-are-21st-century-skills
Week 2: Exploring the 12 21st Century Skills
This week will focus on exploring each of the 12 21st Century Skills to explain what these relate to and and how these can be introduced into your classroom practice.
We will also introduce the concept of the zones of comfort, stretch and panic (Rohnke, n.d).
Time this week is focused on evidence and research and reflection and discussion as you will be applying this to practice across week 3-5.
Teachers' Standards:
Evidence and Research:
This week we will explore the 12 21st Century Skills in more detail, familiarising ourselves with each skills under the three different categories adapting the work of Hummel (2024) from the iCEV article, What Are 21st Century Skills?
Click on each box to find out more about each skill.
Learning Skills
Literacy Skills
Life Skills
As you have read through each of the skills above, you may have identified specific challenges that present themselves for those you teach and the needs that your students have.
It is important to consider these skills as a development not mastery of these and your role is to support the development not achieve mastery.
Learning these skills may not be comfortable for you to teach or your students to learn. It is important to remember how learning happens when we move beyond our comfort zone. The image below introduces the idea of the comfort, stretch and panic zones (Rohnke, n.d). Take a moment to look at this diagram. How might you apply this to your teaching? How might you use this with your students?
The key is to ensure where there is intended learning that the stretch zone is entered, our comfort zone offers just status quo and therefore limited to no learning and the panic zone takes us too far and can result in disengagement and refusal as well as behavioural challenges.
Reflection and Discussion
Take a moment to reflect, thinking of the following:
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Do you explicitly teach 21st Century Skills to your students?
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Do you include any 21st Century Skills as distinct learning objectives?
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Do you implicitly teach these skills without them being made explicit? If so which skills do you feel you already teach?
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Which skills do you feel you do not explicitly or implicitly teach?
References
​Hummel, B. (2024) What Are 21st Century Skills? Available at: https://www.icevonline.com/blog/what-are-21st-century-skills
Limacher, U. (no date) Why Comfort and Stretching Zone can be (almost) one. Available at: https://utesinternationallounge.com/why-comfort-zone-and-stretching-zone-can-be-almost-one/
Week 3: 21st Century Skills within the Curriculum
This week will commence three weeks of applying your learning and new knowledge of 21st Century Skills to practice. But, before you apply this knowledge to your classroom, it is important to consider where 21st Century Skills may naturally sit within the curriculum and how learning objectives can be developed to support pupils in developing these skills, making these a core part of teaching and learning across the curriculum.
Teachers' Standards:
Application and Exploration of Practice and Setting:
You may/will want to access these resources to support you over the next three weeks (as you did in the previous module):
Your stimulus is to embed 21st Century Skills within your curriculum.
Take time to explore your curriculum to identify where the 21st Century skills might sit comfortably and be able to be taught within these aspects of the curriculum.
One way to do this is to complete this curriculum/21st Century Skills Matrix. You might want to do this alongside your ECT Mentor by allocating some time with them this week.
Use the template below, adding all the subjects taught in the curriculum and then ticking the skills that would align well with this subject area and could be taught effectively within the subject.
When you have completed this, consider some learning objectives that could be used in relation to 21st Century Skills e.g.
To build effective communication skills
To practice verbal communication skills.
To utilise leadership skills.
To practice social skills.
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For each 21st Century Skill you could develop 2 or 3 learning objectives. These can be shared in Week 6 with colleagues.
Each learning objective can be proceeded by more specific detail to make them relevant to a specific lesson and subject. For example:
To practice effective communication skills by reading a short poem to the class.
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Once you have completed your matrix and begun to build some 21st Century Skills learning objectives (these can be further added to), you are ready to begin to implement 21st Century Skills in your own teaching in Weeks 4 and 5
Week 4: Applying and Embedding 21st Century Skills in the Classroom
This week, drawing upon learning in weeks 1-3, you will begin to practice embedding 21st Century Skills into your teaching and include some 21st Century Skills learning objectives.
Teachers' Standards:
Application and Exploration of Practice and Setting:
To practice embedding 21st Century Skills into your teaching, choose a couple of subjects that you would like to start with - perhaps those you are more confident in.
Within lessons this week, spot the opportunities to develop 21st Century Skills and include these within the learning objectives using your learning objective starters you developed with your mentor last week.
You do not need to include 21st Century Skills in all lessons related to this subject, but where these are relevant and you see a natural opportunity.
Remember, it is not just about including a 21st Century Skills learning objective but it is about pausing within the lesson to teach this skill, or elements of it, alongside the subject itself.
Essentially, you will be teaching 21st Century Skills as part of your subject lesson. This might sound like:
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"We are each going to read a short poem to the class. Before we do, let's think about how we might want to ensure we do this effectively. How can we communicate this poem to others? "
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Taking the time to explore key elements of communication e.g. tone, pace, volume, diction, speaking with meaning...
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Ask to observe a colleague teach part of a lesson. Choose a subject that you are less confident in teaching if possible.
Focus on opportunities for embedding 21st Century Skills in this lesson.
What skills might be embedded?
What would/could the learning objective be?
How might you teach this skill in this context?
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Week 5: Applying and Embedding 21st Century Skills in the Classroom
This week, you will continue to practice embedding 21st Century Skills as part of teaching and learning. Your mentor will also undertake their termly observation and will focus on 21st Century Skills alongside the Teachers' Standards.
You will also reflect upon the learning and how you are applying this to practice.
Teachers' Standards:
Application and Exploration of Practice and Setting:
Continue to practice including 21st Century Skills in practice. This week trial including 21st Century Skills in another couple of subjects. As previously, include a 21st Century Skills specific learning objective and some explicit teaching of this skill.
Your mentor will undertake their termly observation this week and alongside focusing on the Teachers' Standards, they will look at 21st Century Skills and how you are developing these within your teaching.
You will discuss this in your professional learning conversation after the observation.
Reflection and Discussion
Use Brookfield's four lenses to reflect upon the development of 21st Century Skills in your teaching.
Self - your own thoughts and feelings, strengths and areas for development.
Students - any feedback from your students, and any progress you have seen e.g. assessment.
Peers - here use the feedback and professional discussion with your mentor in developing the matrix and from the observation.
Scholarship - what have you learnt?, what do you want to know more about?
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(Hughes, 2023)
References
Hughes, H. (2023) How Video Reflections Can Help With Curriculum Design. Available at: https://blog.irisconnect.com/uk/curriculum-design
Week 6: Sharing with Colleagues - Leading Professional Development
This week you will reflect upon your learning and experiences of embedding 21st Century Skills into your teaching and prepare to share this new knowledge and practice with colleagues. You will prepare a short staff development input (of around 20-30 minutes) and delivery this.
Teachers' Standards:
Application and Exploration of Practice and Setting:
You have explored 21st Century Skills over the term and have put this learning into practice.
A key element of being a professional is sharing expertise with others.
Using your learning, and working with your Mentor for support and guidance, put together a staff development session of between 20 and 30 minutes to introduce staff to 21st Century Skills.
The professional development session could be structured as follows:
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What are 21st Century Skills & why is it important that we teach them to our pupils?
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The 21st Century Skills matrix - embedding across subjects rather than being an add-on
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Example 21st Century Skills learning objectives.
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Teaching 21st Century Skills - making them explicit teaching points, embedding into current lessons, allowing time for pupils to practice.