What is the Skills Journal?

Your Skills Journal is a record of how you are developing your literacy, numeracy, and digital skills in all your lessons.

Instead of only focusing on what you learn, the Skills Journal helps you focus on:

• How you use your skills in different subjects

• How those skills improve over time

For example, you might:

• Use literacy skills when writing an explanation in Geography or History

• Use numeracy skills when analysing data in Science

• Use digital skills when creating presentations or researching online

Why is it important?

The Skills Journal helps you to:

• Track your progress across all subjects

• Understand your strengths in literacy, numeracy, and digital skills

• Identify areas you need to improve

• Take responsibility for your learning

• See clear evidence of your progress over time

How to use your Skills Journal

You will update your Skills Journal regularly during lessons to evidence the great work you have done.  You will then reflect on your progress over time when you upload further evidence of the skill being used. 

1. Logging Your Work

When completing an entry, you will:

• Choose a piece of work from any subject

• Upload the evidence

• Identify which skill you used (literacy, numeracy, or digital competence), your teacher will guide you with this.

Be clear about what you did, not just the subject.

2. Explaining Your Skills

Next, you will explain:

• How you used the skill

• What you did well

• What you found challenging

For example:

• In literacy: how you structured your writing or used key vocabulary

• In numeracy: how you worked with numbers, graphs, or data

• In digital: how you used technology to create, research, or present work

3. Reflecting on Your Learning

Reflection helps you improve. You will:

• Say what went well

• Identify what could be better

• Think about what you would change next time

This helps you understand how to improve your skills.

4. Reviewing Your Progress

You will regularly look back at your previous entries to:

• See how your skills have improved

• Upload further evidence demonstrating your progress

How does it show your progress?

Your Skills Journal shows progress over time by:

• Recording regular examples of your work across subjects

• Showing how your explanations and reflections improve

• Tracking how your literacy, numeracy, and digital skills develop

By looking back at earlier entries, you will be able to clearly see how much you have improved.

Taking Ownership of Your Learning

Your Skills Journal belongs to you. The more effort you put into it, the more it will help you.

It helps you to:

• Understand your strengths

• Improve your skills

• Take control of your learning

Why these skills matter

Literacy, numeracy, and digital competence are essential skills for:

• All school subjects

• Exams and assessments

• Further education and careers

• Everyday life

Our Expectation

We expect all students in years 7-9 to:

• Keep their Skills Journal up to date

• Complete entries carefully and thoughtfully

• Reflect honestly on their progress

• Use feedback to improve

By doing this, you will be able to clearly see your progress and continue to develop the skills you need to succeed.

If you need help, your Learning Coach will support you.