This tension between policy ambition and classroom reality is not new. But it feels sharper now, as schools are expected to evidence personal development, readiness for work and meaningful progression alongside academic attainment. The challenge is no longer whether skills matter, but how they can be taught, recognised and assessed without becoming another layer of compliance.
For more than 30 years, ASDAN – a charitable awarding organisation and curriculum provider – has championed skills-based learning and worked with education settings to support learners whose strengths and potential are not always fully captured by traditional assessment models.
Dr Zoë Elder, Director of Education, Research and Innovation at ASDAN, frames it simply: “Skills are developed implicitly through every part of the curriculum – formal and informal. The opportunity we have is to make the skills visible to learners, to name them explicitly, and to track their development and thereby value them in a systematic way.”
The idea that skills are present but hidden sits at the heart of many current conversations about equity and curriculum purpose.
A skills framework aligned with inspection and practice
The post-16 education and skills white paper rightly placed renewed emphasis on post-16 pathways, technical education and preparing all young people to thrive as they enter the next phases of their lives. These priorities implicitly recognise that education is about the development of essential skills as part of knowledge acquisition.
Zoë argues that skills begin to really matter when they are made explicit: “Skills don’t develop in isolation,” says Zoë. “They develop and deepen through experience, reflection and conversation. If we don’t design learning to intentionally surface them, we risk rewarding only the end product, not the distinctive process of learning that shapes every young person.”
This matters particularly for learners who do not always thrive in exam-heavy systems. When skills stay hidden, learners can leave school without language for their own strengths. When skills are visible, learners can talk about and share evidence of how they solve problems, work with others, adapt to challenges and make decisions. Those narratives are precisely what employers and training providers say they value.
In this sense, skills frameworks are not about adding something new to the curriculum. They are about making existing learning visible, fairer and more transferable. Above all, in addition to making these skills visible to educators, employers and training providers, they are visible to the learners themselves.
The power of driving questions
One way this shift becomes possible is through the use of driving questions. Rather than organising learning around tasks or statements, driving questions frame learning as inquiry. They ask learners to think before they do, and to reflect after.
Zoë describes this as a small change with potentially big consequences: “It’s often easier to teach to a question than to a statement. A question creates space. It invites curiosity and interpretation.”
Compare: “Study the layout of a religious building” with “How do the spaces we build reflect our beliefs?” Or “Attend a careers talk” with “What can you learn about future pathways by hearing directly from someone in the workplace?”
In each case, the second version encourages interpretation, relevance and ownership. It connects knowledge to context and to the learner’s own experience. This approach aligns closely with what many curriculum reviews are calling for: learning that is purposeful, coherent and connected to life beyond school.
Driving questions also support teachers. They clarify intent, shape activity and give structure to reflection and assessment, making success criteria and expectations clear to everybody – learners and educators alike.They make it easier to explain not just what is being taught, but why it matters.
“Driving questions are designed to give learners agency, direction and focus,” Zoë says. “They work harder to clarify the intentions and purpose of tasks, sparking curiosity, thinking and opportunities for exploration in greater depth than task-setting and completion alone. They’re exploring something meaningful.”
ASDAN provides a range of portfolio-based qualifications designed to support learners at different stages, from Entry Levels 1–3 through to Levels 1 and 2, offering clear progression routes. ASDAN’s renewed Short Courses – with titles from Gardening to Careers and Experiencing Work – have been designed around driving questions and are well suited to learners who benefit from applied, contextualised learning and recognition of progress over time.
In addition, new Personal Effectiveness Qualifications support the development of transferable skills for adulthood, employability and independent living, embedding core skills and using purposeful, inquiry-led learning. These are designed to provide opportunities to integrate skills within specific contexts and themes selected by the learner and their teacher.
Skills embedded, not added
One of the anxieties around skills education is workload. When skills appear as another initiative, they feel like an extra demand. A more sustainable approach is to see skills as already embedded in learning and simply make them visible.
“At ASDAN, our starting point is always: where are the skills already happening?” Zoë explains. “Teachers are developing skills all the time. We help to notice and value that learning. This is where skills come alive from our framework and become more of a shared language.”
In ASDAN courses, learners are provided with multiple opportunities to both plan ahead and then reflect on:
- how they will make their decisions from the choices they have, and how they did this
- how they will communicate their ideas, to what audience, using what methods and how effective their selected communication method was
- how they will work with others, what they need to be like in the group, what role they will take and how this went – the challenges they experienced and how they addressed these
Plan, do, review: learning as a cycle
Another idea that keeps resurfacing in education reform is the importance of reflection. Learning is not linear; it is cyclical. We plan, act, adapt and try again.
ASDAN’s ‘plan, do, review’ cycle captures this reality. It positions reflection not as an afterthought but as an essential part of learning. Learners begin to see progress not only in outcomes, but in how they approach challenges.
Over time, reflection is intended to become habit rather than task and a typical characteristic of what ASDAN learning looks like in the classroom. Students begin to recognise patterns in how they learn and grow. This is not about performance in isolation, it is about understanding themselves as learners within the performance of the tasks they have engaged with.
For schools thinking about behaviour, engagement and transition, this matters. It reframes development as something that unfolds through reflection and experience, not simply through outcomes.
Equitas – a platform designed for equity, inclusion and coherence
Much of the conversation about equity in education focuses on access and attainment. But equity also depends on recognition of the rich, complex and integrated experience of achievement and progress as learners develop their own familiarity, confidence and proficiency in their skills. If systems only recognise one narrow form of success, then many learners remain unseen.
Zoë puts it bluntly: “Equity isn’t about lowering expectations. It’s about widening the ways learners can show what they know and what they can do.”
ASDAN has developed Equitas, a digital learning platform to support schools in delivering skills-based learning at scale, while maintaining professional judgement and reducing administrative burden. Equitas enables learners to engage with challenges, gather evidence and reflect on their progress in one integrated space.
Accessibility has been a key design principle. When learners can demonstrate achievement through different forms of evidence – writing, discussion, images, audio, video – barriers are reduced. Skills become about capability rather than compliance. This matters not only for inclusion, but for authenticity. Real-world competence is rarely demonstrated through one format alone.
For practitioners, Equitas provides clear oversight of learner progress, making it easier to monitor development, support intervention and evidence impact without duplicating systems. For learners, it builds confidence and supports transition by helping them articulate what they can do, how they have developed and what they bring to the next stage.
ASDAN’s skills framework embedded in Equitas responds directly to a recurring policy question: how we evidence personal development and employability skills in a way that is credible rather than tokenistic. “This is one of our key research priorities and a fundamental aspect of our collaborative work with practitioners, learners and academics,” says Zoë. “We will continue to grow our evidence base and contribute to the literature to strengthen our understanding of skills-development and recognition in learning.”
As the education system grapples with curriculum reform, skills agendas and the challenge of meaningful engagement, ASDAN’s inclusive, portfolio-based approach stands as an example of what is possible when pedagogy is anchored in curiosity and courage.
Find out how ASDAN could work in your setting
Visit the ASDAN website and complete a short expression of interest form to speak with the ASDAN team about membership options.
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