Skills & School
What skills do students need now and for life beyond K-12?
We believe this is an essential and practical question that students can help answer.
As part of our work with Ontario schools and school boards, we have been listening to students in Grades 4-12 about what skills they are currently developing in school, and what skills they need more support with. Students complete a short in-class activity, based on the Ministry of Education’s 7 Transferable Skills, and then we analyze the data and share concrete recommendations.
To organize a Skills & School activity in your school or district, or learn more about our findings, email team@maximumcity.ca.
What students & TEACHERS are saying:
”We had really great conversations about these skills! They think our learning skills (report card) should be updated! Wow!! I am going to spend more time on this next year.”
— Elementary School Teacher
“Why can't geography class feel like a community? All it took was my teacher allocating 5 minutes a day to have students going into randomly selected groups of three to work on a quick task for me to have known and connected with everyone in the classroom. So why is it so hard for other classes to do the same? With the ever-increasing rise of phone use, it is understandable people will be anti-social, so I advocate that teachers not just do ‘the geography thing’ but value turning their class into a community where people KNOW each other.”
— High School Student
”The students really took the activity seriously and truly wanted to use the opportunity to air out their issues and concerns with their experience this year. They wrote with passion adn desire for change.”
— Elementary School Teacher
“I think teachers can help us with critical thinking and problem solving by helping us work around things. I also think teachers can help us by giving us real life problems and having us work around the problem and solving the problem.”
— Elementary School Student
“Students really enjoyed thinking of real life examples. They enjoyed being able to draw themeselves at school. Activity was simple and direct.”
— Elementary School Teacher
”I have found that many teachers, because of how much they advocate for a quiet classroom, have really impaired many students' collaboration skills. They make sure we don't talk to each other, and then are surprised that no one talks to each other when there is group work once every three months.”
— High School Student
”Students appreciated being asked and having a voice.”
— High School Teacher
”We need a chance to learn leadership. We don't really get a say in what we do in school, we just have to listen to the responsible adults.”
— Elementary School Student
”Student participation was generally better than what I get in a normal class.”
— High School Teacher
“Creativity is downgraded to a non-transferable skill, when creativity is actually what the world stands on. Someone thought and imagined everything that we stand on.”
— High School Student
“Sticky activity. It was interesting to see how they viewed themeselves.”
— Elementary School Teacher
“We should design more things like solving 1 of the United Nations sustainable goals. We can do more things like how to save earth from pollution.”
— Elementary School Student
“The questions generated some real thought and reflection about students’ skills and needs. They were very honest about their feelings.”
— Elementary School Teacher
