Essential and Employability Skills These are skills that

Essential and Employability Skills These are skills that employers and next stage educators value and which you as learners need for learning, work and life. Literacy Numeracy Digital Literacy Critical thinking and problem solving Planning and organisation Creativity and innovation Personal effectiveness P During this lesson you will be developing the skill of Personal effectiveness.

Personal Skills What areas subjects do you excel at – in school or extra curricular? Why do you succeed in this area?

Critically analysing your personal skills can be difficult. However it is a valuable task. An individual skills audit is where a person identifies what skills they have. Why is a skills audit important for an individual?

A skills audit allows individuals to understand what skills they have and what they are good at. It can also give themselves areas to improve. An individual can then set themselves targets to improve their own skills.

It can encourage an individual to seek guidance and support in order to improve their own skills.

A skills audit is also important part of business, companies will investigate what skills employees have and from this they can identify where certain individuals need to develop and also if they can transfer individuals to different departments where their skills might be more useful.

One way of looking at your own skills is to complete a personal SWOT analysis. Strengths Weaknesses Threats Opportunities Task: Analyse your own personal skills using a SWOT analysis.

SWOT Analysis What skills do you have? What qualifications do you have? What experience do you have? What do you enjoy? What tasks do you do well? What do others say your strengths are? What are your best achievements? What do you find exciting? What do you do better than anyone else? What connections do you have? What are your unique strengths? What do you find difficult? What do you do badly? What do others do better? What could you do better? What do you need help with? What would other people say your weaknesses are? What tasks do you not like doing? Do any aspects of your personality hold you back? Are you as knowledgeable as you could be?

SWOT Analysis What could stop you developing? Qualifications Experience Finances People What weaknesses could get in your way? Where have you failed before? Who is in direct competition with you? Are professional standards changing that you do not meet? What strengths could you build on? What could you do to overcome weaknesses? What resources are available? What training would you like to do? Who could help you? Could you take advantage of any training? Are there any projects that you could get involved in

Employability Skills Map Professionalism Communicating Team-Working Planning & Organising Problem Solving To get an image of the Skills Map from the University of Kent go to: http: //www. kent. ac. uk/careers/sk/skillsmap. htm

Targeting Life Skills Relating, Caring Giving, Working Being, Living Thinking, Managing To get an image of Targeting Life Skills wheel from Cornell University go to: http: //www. putknowledgetowork. org/targeting-life-skills/

An example of a SWOT analysis

Skills Audit Examine 2/3 skills audits and note the strengths and weaknesses of each of them. Think about what information they may provide you with. Strengths Weaknesses After analysing your results, choose one audit to complete and explain why you have made this choice.

Skills Audit Complete your skills audit. Analyse your results.

Skills Passport Create a skills passport that will clearly display the results of your audit.

Employability Skills Map Professionalism Communicating Team-Working Planning & Organising Problem Solving To get an image of the Skills Map from the University of Kent go to: http: //www. kent. ac. uk/careers/sk/skillsmap. htm

Within this challenge you will need to use a number of skills. Some of which you may have, or may be starting to develop. You may need to use the ‘expertise’ of others around you to support you in some areas of the challenge. Are there any tasks in the following list that you may need support with. Is there anyone in the room that could help you? - Creating a financial spreadsheet - Coming up with a creative and imaginative idea. - Creating a questionnaire for market research.

Plenary Reflect on your SWOT analysis and skills audit. Think about the outcomes of both – do they show similar existing skills. Are the ‘areas of development’ the same? Is there any information from the skills audit that has surprised you?

Possible areas for development: Setting targets Choose one skill area that you could improve. Think of possible ways that you could do to improve that skill. Think about support / advice that you may need.

Write an action plan for the area that you want to improve. Make sure your targets are SMART.