13 October, 2024

Unlocking New Skills

Unlocking New Skills - NORD New Skills
Nord Anglia | INSIGHTS
 Soft skills are the new hard skills
“Great academics open doors, well-rounded individuals walk through them and thrive,” is a phrase that Principal Barrie Scrymgeour has been using a lot lately.

It sums up nicely what is becoming ever more obvious in a world where digital and AI technologies are transforming our lives. What we learn today might be out of date tomorrow, and good test scores are only part of the equation.

“I started teaching in 2000 and I remember having a presentation then about the jobs of the future and getting students ready for roles that hadn’t yet been created,” says Scrymgeour, the head of the British International School of Houston. “The need to future-proof young people is even more important now.”

Soft skills are the new hard skills
 
Recent research by global management consultants McKinsey & Company looks at the nature of jobs that will be lost, as well as created, as automation, AI and robotics take hold. It suggests that as demand for manual, physical and basic cognitive skills declines, the value of technological, social and emotional, as well as higher cognitive skills grows.

On the back of this, the company has devised 56 “foundational skills and attitudes” that will “help citizens thrive in the future of work.”

While something of a wish list, it is illuminating. If we displayed all of these skills and characteristics all the time, we would be superhuman.

Under the four headings of cognitive, interpersonal, self-leadership and digital are attributes such as logical reasoning, time management, active listening, creativity and imagination, empathy, inspiring trust, resolving conflicts, integrity, self-motivation, and programming and data literacy.

Surveying 18,000 people in 15 countries, the researchers found that higher scores in these proficiencies equalled higher incomes and levels of job satisfaction.

Life in the Skills Locker - Life in the Skills Locker

Being "book smart" isn't enough
 
What the research points to is a growing imperative on schools to help children develop a locker of life skills to give them the solid foundations they need to thrive, both professionally and personally. It’s a thread that runs through teaching and learning at Nord Anglia Education’s schools. What companies used to casually refer to as ‘soft skills’ are now fundamental for children to develop so they are able to deal with everything life throws at them.

The British International School of Houston takes as its starting point the International Baccalaureate (IB) learner profile, which develops attributes that go beyond academic achievement. It aims to nurture students, and indeed staff, who are inquirers, knowledgeable, thinkers, communicators, open-minded, caring, risk-takers, balanced, reflective, and principled.

“These are key behaviours that we want students and staff to model,” says Scrymgeour. “Being principled, having the right core values, pride, unity, respect, thinking critically and reflecting on your own assessment of risk.”

The school’s house points system rewards these behaviours, building them into the fabric of the institution. Staff regularly check which learner profile characteristics are generating the most points, as well as those they need to boost through the curriculum, registration, assembly and other areas of school life. Coding is also taught from reception to give children a head start in the tech skills that the McKinsey research highlights as increasingly vital.

Life in the Skills Locker - Life in the Skills Locker

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It seems, then, that Gen Z, parents, schools and employers are more or less on the same page when it comes to the most important components of the life-skills locker - a consensus that bodes well for the future.

“The pace of change in the modern world is so rapid and we all have to respond to that reality,” says Aishat Ola-Said, from Colt Tech. “What companies are looking for are recruits who are pulling you into the future, not people who you have to push there.”