Approaches to teaching core life skills (secondary)

Build core life skills into your curriculum to help prepare your pupils for the next stage of their lives. Find out about different approaches to do this, and how you might measure the impact of teaching these skills.

Last reviewed on 9 November 2022
School types: All · School phases: Secondary
Ref: 33650
Contents
  1. What are life skills?
  2. Hold one-off extra-curricular days throughout the year
  3. Plan discrete lessons
  4. Use tutor time
  5. Embed life skills in existing subjects
  6. Measure the impact of teaching core life skills

What are life skills?

There's no one definition or list, though it's often associated with skills that help people to manage and live a better quality of life. According to the web service SkillsYouNeed, important life skills may include:

  • Study skills
  • Negotiation skills
  • Employability skills
  • Stress management skills
  • Problem-solving skills

The life skills you teach will depend on the age of your pupils - for example, job-related skills might be more relevant to Key Stage (KS) 4 than KS3 pupils.

Hold one-off extra-curricular days throughout the year

These 'focus days' can involve workshops, presentations or lessons on specific life skills.

You may want to:

Highworth Grammar School in Kent runs extra-curricular days where pupils focus on topics such as careers, enterprise

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