Dashwood Power Skills

Power Skill
Communication

Communicating effectively in everyday life

• Clearly expressing wants, needs and thoughts
• Listening to receive information and think about that has been said
• Being respectful and polite
• Consideration of the audience that is being communicated with or presented to
• Use of a range of media to communicate (e.g. writing, presentations, art work)
• Reflecting on learning, giving feedback and responding to feedback

• Informative presentation (live) to groups of various sizes and ages/levels of understanding
• Persuasive presentation (live) to groups of various sizes and backgrounds
• Interview (acting as the interviewer)
• Interview (acting as the interviewee)
• Writing to persuade, describe, inform or discuss through varied media
• Museum curator – concise and clear information sharing with non-experts
• Video presentation
• Social media post (limited to 160 characters)
• Personal statement (limited to 2 pages)
• Mathematical communication of processes/formulas
• Tour guide

Power Skill
Creativity

Creativity in everyday life

• Thinks outside the box
• Shows different approaches to completing tasks
• Is willing to be flexible and adapt to different scenarios
• Coach someone else to take a more creative approach
• Use experiences and stimuli to spark creativity
• Develop ideas by considering different perspectives

• Using your understanding to explore and design more efficient or effective systems to generate new ideas or improve performance
• Creating something original with the knowledge and skill that you have gained through varied media:
  • An article in the DBA News – Pupil-Led Newspaper
  • Painting
  • Sculpting
  • Creative writing
  • Speech/Persuasive writing/Advertising campaigns
  • Music composition
  • Website creation
  • Product development
  • Graphic design
  • Choreography
  • Recording a podcast or video-cast
  • Game development
  • Instruction writing
  • Model building
  • Word processing, presentation and spreadsheet software
  • Blog writing
  • Logo/mural development based on a given brief
  • Stop motion animation
  • Event planning

Power Skill
Critical Thinking & Problem Solving

Critical Thinking & Problem Solving
in everyday life

• Makes connections in learning
• Problem solves
• Identifies problems and works towards a solution
• Persists to solve complex problems
• See arising problems as challenges that can overcome
• Complete tasks by finding information
• Analyse cause and effect
• Analyse problems by creating and testing hypothesis
• Implement strategic plans to solve more complex problems and reflect on learning to solve similar problems when they arise

Justify:

• Ranking activities and justification of opinions
• Planned debates and discussions with others
• Agree or Disagree/True or False activities

Predict:

• Using your knowledge, what do you predict?

Find solutions:

• Can you find and offer multiple solutions to a given problem?
• Select the most appropriate solution to a problem?

Test and improve:

• Using your knowledge, test and suggest improvements to an existing product, theory or solution
• Work out the most efficient and effective method

Summarise:

• Using your knowledge, summarise the key points so far
• Using your understanding, can you summarise the key points so that someone else can understand?

Evaluate:

• Can you evaluate the effectiveness of a whole and offer suggestions for improvement?
• Can you mark a piece of work against a criteria and offer feedback?
• Can you decide on whether information is true or false, reliable or not?

Evaluate:

• Can you analyse information to find trends or next steps?
• Can you work out why something occurred?
• Can you identify strengths and weaknesses?
• Model building
• Word processing, presentation and spreadsheet software
• Blog writing
• Logo/mural development based on a given brief
• Stop motion animation
• Event planning

Power Skill
Character Learning to Deep Learn

Developing Character in everyday life

• Shows grit, tenacity, perseverance and resilience
• Demonstrates good skills to be an active learner
• Knows that we all have strengths and weaknesses to develop
• Understands that different learning tasks require different approaches

• Growth mindset – understanding that ability is earned through time, practice and dedication
• Metacognition – understanding how we learn, our memory and how connections are made
• Self regulation techniques – the ability to overcome stressful or challenging situations
• Locus of Control – understanding where to invest your time, effort and attention
• Self-reflection and critical mindset – knowing your strengths and weaknesses so that you have the power to develop them
• Taking responsibility – understanding that you have choices to make and these choices have consequences, of which you must take responsibility
• Self-motivation & independence – making the right choices without reminders. Understanding your purpose and drive and how you can reach your goals through your daily actions
• Resilience, perseverance and grit – not giving up easily. Understanding that learning is meant to be challenging and enjoying the challenge

Power Skill
Collaboration

Collaboration in everyday life

• Working with others
• Cooperate in a group
• Consideration of the group dynamics
• Works in different ways when collaborating
• Listens to others
• Responds to the ideas of others
• Understanding and respecting diversity of others’ culture, background and beliefs

• Evaluating the strengths and limitations of your team and allocating roles and responsibilities to achieve the best outcome
• Ensuring there is clarity of the goal and agreed method to achieve this
• Practising repeatedly as a team to ensure that there is cohesion and flow within the group, leading to a likely positive outcome
• Motivating and supporting others to overcome barriers to achieve goals
• Managing expectations and personalities of team members
• Holding others to account when performance is not of the expected standard
• Ensuring effective time management of self and others