Enrichment and Skills Builder
Most secondary schools already offer plenty of enrichment. Clubs, trips, sports fixtures and residentials fill the calendar. The harder part is knowing how to evidence enrichment and demonstrate what those experiences actually achieve for students. Rather than simply showing that students took part, schools increasingly need to understand the outcomes behind their enrichment offer. That is where Skills Builder and a well-planned residential can help turn“they had a great time” into skills, reflections and development that students can recognise and record.
Why is evidencing enrichment important?
The Department for Education’s enrichment benchmarks encourage schools to look beyond participation and consider the outcomes students gain from enrichment.
The benchmarks cover a range of enrichment opportunities, including nature, outdoors and adventure and developing wider life and future skills. They also encourage an outcomes-focused approach, looking at areas including social and emotional development, belonging and essential skill development. Simply recording attendance only tells part of the story.
Knowing that students went on a residential tells you who participated. Understanding the skills they practised and the progress they recognised helps tell you what they gained from the experience. This is where a structured approach to essential skills can make a real difference.
How does Skills Builder help you evidence enrichment?
The Skills Builder Universal Framework gives schools and students a shared language for essential skills development.
It breaks eight essential skills into four areas:
Communication
- Listening
- Speaking
Self-Management
- Adapting
- Planning
Creative Problem Solving
- Problem Solving
- Creativity
Collaboration
- Leadership
-
Teamwork
Each skill is broken down into 16 progressive steps, helping students understand what development can look like as they move from the basics towards more advanced application.
Instead of simply saying“students demonstrated teamwork”, the framework provides a more structured way for students to identify the specific skills they used.
That means the adventure itself becomes the starting point for something more: recognising how a student listened, adapted, planned, solved a problem, supported a team or stepped into a leadership role.
What does Skills Builder look like on a JCA residential?
From February 2027, Skills Builder will be included in the price of secondary residentials at Condover Hall and Croft Farm.
Skills development isn’t treated as something separate from the residential experience. Instead, it is built into the challenges, activities and reflections students experience throughout their stay.
Here’s how it works.
Starting with a baseline
When students arrive, they rate themselves against the essential skills and agree a Group Charter for how they want to work together throughout their residential.
This gives students a starting point and introduces the skills they will be thinking about during their stay.
Skills built into activities
Each JCA activity focuses on three specific Skills Builder steps.
Before an activity begins, the instructor introduces those focus skills. Students then have the opportunity to put them into practice as they tackle the challenge in front of them.
Whether they are working together, solving a problem or adapting when something does not go to plan, the activity gives those skills a real context.
Time to reflect
Instructor-led reflection sessions are built into the timetable, giving students time to think about the skills they have used.
Rather than simply finishing an activity and moving straight to the next one, students can identify their own examples of putting essential skills into practice and record them.
This helps turn an experience into something students can understand and talk about afterwards.
Skills beyond the activities
Of course, development on a residential doesn’t stop when an activity finishes.
Four skill steps run throughout the stay: active listening, practising resilience, involving others and being diplomatic.
Sharing accommodation, spending extended time with classmates and navigating everyday moments together can all give students further opportunities to recognise skills in action.
Reflecting on progress
Before leaving, students rate themselves against the essential skills again.
This gives them an opportunity to reflect on their starting point, consider what they have experienced and recognise where they feel they have developed.
Taking the evidence back to school
Each student completes an Essential Skills Passport, which is handed back to teachers at the end of the residential.
Rather than the residential ending when the coach leaves, students return to school with a record of the skills and examples they identified during their experience.
Which enrichment benchmarks can a residential help support?
A JCA Skills Builder residential can contribute evidence towards several areas of an enrichment offer.
1. Align with school priorities
Essential skills can connect the residential experience with wider school priorities and give students a consistent language for recognising their development.
2. Provide varied opportunities
Residential experiences can combine nature, outdoor adventure, physical activity and opportunities to develop wider life and future skills.
3. Celebrate participation
Essential Skills Passports and certificates give students a way to recognise and share their experience.
5. Accessible and inclusive opportunities
JCA programmes can be planned around the needs of individual groups, with schools encouraged to discuss requirements in advance.
6. Work with external partners
JCA is a Level 3 Skills Builder partner, bringing the Skills Builder framework into the residential experience.
7. Focus on outcomes
Baseline and end-of-stay self-assessments, combined with students’ own reflections, provide a structured way to capture development.
8. Keep improving
Evidence recorded through the Essential Skills Passport can support schools when reviewing their enrichment offer and considering future provision.
How can you use the evidence back at school?
The value of the Essential Skills Passport doesn’t have to stop at the end of the residential.
Students’ own reflections can give schools examples of the skills they practised and the moments where they recognised their development.
Back at school, this evidence can be used to:
- give leaders real examples of personal development alongside participation figures
- support enrichment self-assessment with examples of student outcomes
- bring student voice into conversations about enrichment
- celebrate students’ progress with parents
- continue using the same skill language during tutor time, PSHE or careers lessons
It creates a clearer connection between what happens on the residential and what students continue to work on when they return to school.
From adventure to evidence
A residential will always be about the experience.
It’s about taking on something new, working alongside classmates and creating memories away from the classroom.
But those experiences can also provide opportunities for students to recognise the skills they are putting into practice.
Skills Builder gives those moments a shared language. Reflection gives students time to recognise them. And the Essential Skills Passport gives them something they can take back to school.
So instead of simply asking“Did our students enjoy their residential?”, schools can begin asking:
What did they learn about themselves, and how can we show it?
Ready to plan your next school residential?
Speak to a member of the team
