ID107 Skills Curriculum Model

The Idea

Higher education is undergoing rapid transformation as widening participation diversifies student cohorts and economic, technological and societal change reshapes expectations of graduates. Employers consistently demand graduates who can demonstrate not only disciplinary expertise but also transferable capabilities including problem-solving, communication, adaptability and collaboration. 

This proposal introduces a pedagogical approach that establishes a coherent, institution-wide skills curriculum model to make skills explicit, visible and evidenced throughout the student journey, particularly at module and sessional level where learning is experienced most directly by students. Despite the strengths of existing institutional frameworks, students do not always encounter skills development in a consistently visible way at module and session level, making it harder for them to recognise and articulate the capabilities they acquire through their studies. 

Keele already has strong foundations, including the Graduate Attributes Framework, Inclusive Education Framework and Curriculum Expectations. While effective, these are often applied variably. A Skills Curriculum Model would bring them together into a unified and consistently applied structure in which skills are intentionally taught, practised and signposted within modules, rather than assumed to be implicitly acquired. Existing frameworks describe the skills, attributes and educational principles that Keele wishes students to develop, whereas the Skills Curriculum Model provides a structured approach for making those skills visible and explicit within teaching, learning, assessment and feedback. Its focus is on consistent implementation at module and session level so that students can more easily identify and articulate the skills gained through their studies.

Why This Idea Should Be Considered

National evidence consistently shows that many students struggle to identify and articulate the transferable skills developed through their degree programmes, despite employers placing increasing emphasis on skills such as communication, problem solving, collaboration and adaptability. While Keele has strong existing frameworks, including the Graduate Attributes Framework, Inclusive Education Framework and Curriculum Expectations, skills development is often implicit or inconsistently articulated across programmes, modules and teaching sessions. As a result, students may develop valuable academic, professional and personal skills but not always recognise, evidence or confidently articulate them to employers. This proposal does not suggest that skills are absent from the curriculum; rather, it argues that existing practice is not always consistently visible to students. The issue is particularly evident at module and session level, where opportunities for skills development are not always clearly framed or communicated. The Skills Curriculum model therefore aims to create a more coherent institution-wide approach that makes existing skills development explicit, visible and easier for students to identify and reflect upon. 

Embedding the Skills Curriculum model at this level ensures that students can repeatedly encounter, practise and reflect on skills in context, rather than only encountering them at programme-level design stages. This model also aligns with existing institutional tools such as Keele Essentials and My Skills Progress, enabling students to self-assess against Graduate Attributes and connect their academic experiences with structured reflection and personal development.

How We Would Implement This Idea

Implementation would focus on making existing practice more explicit, visible and consistently applied, rather than introducing additional processes. The emphasis would be on strengthening how skills are articulated and experienced within modules and teaching sessions, where students engage most directly with their learning. The model is designed to build on existing curriculum design, module development and quality assurance processes rather than introduce new requirements. Skills articulation and signposting would be incorporated into activities already undertaken by academic staff, such as preparing teaching materials, designing assessments and providing feedback. The emphasis is on making current practice more visible to students, rather than creating additional teaching or administrative activity 

Within this model, skills development would be embedded through programme design processes already in place, but with a clearer expectation that modules explicitly identify how disciplinary content and core skills are integrated. This would ensure that skills are not only mapped at programme level but are also explicitly identified, reinforced and signposted within individual teaching sessions, learning materials and assessment tasks. In practice, this means students would encounter regular and visible references to the skills they are developing, rather than being expected to infer them independently. This integration ensures that skills are developed through engagement with subject-specific knowledge and ways of thinking, rather than being treated as separate or stand-alone competencies. 

The Skills Curriculum model balances high-quality subject specific knowledge and skills with broader academic and personal skills, allowing flexibility for different disciplines to focus on key subject or field-specific skills whilst also ensuring transferable skill development. Central to the Skills Curriculum model is the principle that skills are developed through engagement with disciplinary knowledge, methods and practices, rather than separately from them. The model does not replace or reduce subject content. Instead, it makes the skills developed through disciplinary learning more explicit to students. Academic Expertise therefore remains the foundation of the curriculum model, with subject knowledge, understanding and specialist technical skills continuing to be developed progressively through discipline-specific teaching, learning and assessment. 

To support this, existing academic development processes would be used to help staff make skills teaching more explicit within their current practice. This would focus on practical enhancements, such as clearer articulation of skills during teaching, in assessment and through feedback, rather than additional activity, ensuring no increase in workload for academic staff. Examples may include adding the skill to an existing lecture slide, explaining how an assessment develops research skills, highlighting collaboration skills during group learning activities and/or clearly identifying employability skills within formative and summative feedback. As these activities build upon existing teaching and assessment practices, implementation would focus on enhancement rather than additional workload. 

The Skills Curriculum model aligns closely with existing institutional frameworks and systems, including the Graduate Attributes Framework, Keele Careers provision and digital tools such as My Skills Progress within Keele Essentials. Establishing this alignment would create a shared institutional language for skills development, helping students connect their academic work with structured reflection and employability development, while avoiding duplication across initiatives. 

Monitoring and evaluation would be embedded within existing quality assurance and enhancement processes, such as module approval and annual programme reviews to assess how effectively skills are being embedded and communicated at sessional and modular levels. Effective practice would be identified and shared across Schools and Faculties, supporting consistency while allowing for disciplinary flexibility. No new approval or reporting mechanisms would be required. Consideration of skills visibility and articulation could be incorporated into existing module approval, programme review and enhancement discussions, ensuring that oversight is achieved through established processes. 

Initial implementation would take the form of a targeted pilot across a small number of undergraduate and postgraduate programmes. This would allow evaluation of how effectively the model supports module level delivery, how it is experienced by staff, and how it impacts students’ ability to recognise and articulate their skills. Insights from this phase would inform iterative refinement before wider rollout. Particular consideration would be given to postgraduate research provision, with input from the Keele Doctoral Academy to ensure the model aligns with existing skills development processes and reflects the requirements of Professional Doctorates and PGR programmes.

What Success Would Look Like

A successful Skills Curriculum model would create a coherent, institution-wide approach in which academic expertise, professional skills and personal development are intentionally integrated and consistently communicated across undergraduate and postgraduate provision. Students would experience a clear and connected approach to skills development throughout their studies, while retaining the disciplinary depth and distinctiveness that underpin academic excellence. 

As a result, students would be able to confidently identify, articulate and evidence the skills developed through their academic, co-curricular and extracurricular experiences. Through teaching, assessment, feedback and reflective tools such as My Skills Progress, they would develop a strong understanding of how their learning translates into employment, further study and professional practice, enabling them to present compelling evidence of their capabilities to employers and other stakeholders. 

Beyond individual student outcomes, success would be demonstrated through increased confidence, stronger engagement with employability and personal development opportunities, and greater consistency in how skills are embedded, communicated and reinforced across programmes and modules. Academic staff would be supported by a shared institutional approach that enables the explicit development of skills within disciplinary learning without increasing workload or reducing subject content. 

At an institutional level, success would be evidenced through stronger graduate outcomes, enhanced employer recognition of the value of a Keele education, richer HEAR records and closer alignment between academic provision, careers education and student development initiatives. Ultimately, Keele graduates would leave the University not only with deep disciplinary knowledge, but with the confidence and capability to apply that knowledge to solve problems, work collaboratively, adapt to change and make a positive contribution in their professions and communities.