Executive Function: Study Sklls

Empowering Independent Learners: Executive Function at SASM

At St Andrew’s and St Mark’s (SASM), our vision is to provide "life in all its fullness" (John 10:10) by ensuring every child leaves our school as a confident, lifelong learner. To achieve this, we have made the development of Executive Function skills—which we refer to as Study Skills—a school priority.

What is Executive Function?

Executive function refers to the mental processes that enable pupils to plan, focus attention, remember instructions, and juggle multiple tasks successfully. We believe that these skills are not just innate but can be explicitly taught to help pupils acquire the independence they need to succeed both in the classroom and in later life.

What We Are Doing

We have established a comprehensive Executive Function project to ensure these skills are woven into the fabric of school life:

• Explicit Study Skills Lessons: We provide dedicated instruction on key executive function pillars, including "getting started," "staying on track," "stop and think," "flexibility," "planning and organising," and "working memory".

• Expert Collaboration: Our staff have worked closely with an Educational Psychologist to embed these strategies directly into our daily teaching and lesson design.

• Scaling Up for All: Originally piloted as a targeted intervention, our executive function programme has been scaled up to the whole school. Every pupil now uses common symbols and language to identify and apply these skills in their learning. Pupils also recieved explict lessons about executive function skills

• Understanding the Brain: During our "Fullness Focus" days, pupils dive deeper into how they learn. For example, in our "My Learning Journey" focus, pupils explore the processes of encoding and retrieval to understand how they store and recall information.

• Removing Practical Barriers: To help pupils focus on their learning rather than their resources, we provide standardised equipment and pencil cases for every child. Staff have noted that this simple change has empowered pupils to take more responsibility for their learning and has significantly increased the pace of lessons. We have reincforced this through 'equpiment checks' with the class most prepared for learning recieving a non-uniform day.

The Impact

Our commitment to developing these skills is already showing results. Teachers have reported that the programme is increasing the pace of learning across the school. Furthermore, our pupils are becoming more self-reflective, often using their "study skills" vocabulary to explain how they are approaching a task or managing their own emotions and focus.

Working with Families

We believe that supporting executive function is a partnership between home and school. We regularly host Family Hub Workshops specifically on the topic of Executive Function, helping parents and carers understand these concepts and how they can be reinforced at home.

By explicitly teaching pupils how to learn, we are removing barriers to success and ensuring that all children at SASM are well-prepared for the next stage of their education