Simon Ashley, BP’s UK HR director, explains how using the Skills Builder Framework in schools can ensure young people acquire the skills that employers need.
As a global energy company, operating in more than than 70 countries around the world, BP wants to help its people to develop a shared understanding of how to get the best out of one another.
The Skills Builder Framework, produced by The Skills Builder Partnership, neatly complements the employability skills we are seeking in our employees at BP. As careers leaders, teachers and education professionals, you can be confident in using Skills Builder to develop a strong foundation in all your pupils that will enable them to successfully access the workplace.
We are mapping our free BP Educational Service teaching resources against the Skills Builder Framework, to make it clear where the resources can be used by teachers to develop particular skills at different levels in the framework.
Team-based challenges such as the BP Ultimate STEM Challenge, Go4SET, the Engineering Education Scheme and activities in school-run STEM clubs also provide good opportunities for pupils to develop their skill levels across the full range of essential skills.
The BP Skills Refinery provides an opportunity for students to test and develop their abilities. The platform has been developed using the latest digital technologies to create an online gamified portal, where students will find resources to help them enhance essential professional skills, while also having fun.
The five core skills identified on the BP Skills Refinery are:
We support the Skills Builder framework, which is used in many primary and secondary schools and colleges across the UK and sits at the heart of many partnerships.
If you are not familiar with the framework, visit the Skills Builder website and explore how to use the toolkit to support the progression of each individual pupil. The toolkit is freely available, and there are optional paid-for support packages that include classroom resources, training and support, as well as an online assessment tool to visualise progress.
Success in job applications is helped by lots of practice. When we interview candidates for roles at BP, we encourage them to answer using the STAR technique – Situation, Task, Approach and Results. Using the Skills Builder toolkit and its related activities can help your pupils build up a range of examples over time from which they can draw to answer the competency questions that would arise in an interview process.