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    Skills Exercises
    Introduction

    • What are Skills Exercises?

      Welcome to our guide that introduces Skills Exercises. This video includes information on:

      • What skills are
      • How Skills Exercises might be used

      Skills Exercises provide suggestions so you can have confidence that the materials you prepare and use in the classroom are building skills and resilience in your learners. This document should be used alongside the other teaching and learning resources provided on the School Support Hub.


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       show/hide  Video transcript

      The aim of this video is to introduce Skills Exercises.

      Skills Exercises are a teaching resource which focus on the assessment objectives of Cambridge syllabuses.

      Each Skills Exercises resource aligns to the assessment objectives in the syllabus.  

      So, what are skills?

      Skills are the way in which we assess qualifications. 

      The skills focused on in each syllabus may include some or all of the following skills:

      Knowledge and Understanding, Analysis, Interpretation, Application, and Evaluation

      For example, one syllabus may demonstrate the skills like this

      AO1 Knowledge and understanding, AO2 Application, AO3 Analysis, AO4 Evaluation

      The assessment objectives for another syllabus may appear like this:

      AO1 Knowledge and understanding, AO2 Analysis and application, AO3 Evaluation

      And another example would be:

      AO1 Knowledge and understanding, AO2 Analysis, AO3 Evaluation

      The subject and level of the syllabus will indicate which skills are needed for the examination, so it is important to refer to the syllabus for the subject being studied. 


      Skills Exercises are designed to build learner confidence through practice and skills development. The skills align to the assessment objectives of the syllabus, which together, provide a set of tools which equip the learner to think and communicate within the subject discipline.

      Skills Exercises include topic specific exercises with suggested classroom activities and teaching approaches.

      And there are worksheets and answer sheets for each activity which can be printed off for your learners.

      Skills Exercises provide learners with the practice they need to succeed in the final exams. 


      Now let’s look at ways in which you can use Skills Exercises in the classroom with your learners.

      You may use the activities in the Skills Exercises in different ways and at different times during a course:

      In the classroom with your learners,

      as homework or independent study,

      or as an extension activity to challenge your learners. 


      Here is an example of Skills Exercises for the assessment objective, evaluation.

      Evaluation is the ability to answer the question, usually with a judgement and justification.

      Exercise 1  focuses on Answering the question and has three activities:

      How to answer the question,

      Find the conclusion,

      and Making judgements.

      Let’s look at Activity 1 How to answer the question.

      Learners are given a series of evaluative questions.

      • Evaluate the principles which could influence the successful operation of Just-in-Time (JIT) inventory management. Learners first decide what they are making a judgement about.
      • Discuss how marginal costing could be useful for a business decision to make or buy a product.
      • Explain why the finance director rejected Sarah’s proposal to recruit Jenna.
      They then make a judgement about each question and write a sentence for the conclusion. 

      Learners’ ability to turn this judgement into the first line of their conclusion is an essential skill in communicating to the examiner what their answer is about.

      For each worksheet in the Skills Exercises resource, there is an answer sheet.

      You may also adapt or add to this activity by using a different scenario or different evaluative questions which you can find in past or specimen papers. 


      Here is an example of an activity which focuses on the skill of knowledge and understanding.

      Learners are given cards which focus on different concepts and learners have to explain or write their ideas of what that concept is on the back of the card.

      The cards can be used:

      • For revision, where the learner looks at the concept and must explain to themselves what it means.
      • As a card game. One learner chooses a card and asks the next player to explain the concept. If the player gets the concept wrong, then they are ‘out’ of the game. If they get the concept correct, then they get to play one of their cards to the next player. The winning player is the last to be left in the game.
      • As a flash card to use as a starter or a plenary to a lesson. 
      Skills Exercises can be adapted to suit your learners’ needs and your specific context of learning. 

      For example, an AO2 interpretation and application activity suggests using a past examination question to ask learners to follow a structure for an essay.

      This structure could be applied to other essay style questions.

      You can use a past examination paper and adapt the question for whichever subject you are teaching. 

      You can find the Skills Exercises on the School Support Hub

      Search the code or subject.

      Go to the syllabus page and click on the Teaching and Learning tab to find the Skills Exercises resource.

      Skills Exercises are just one of the many resources you may use as a guide for effective teaching, creating engaging and effective activities for your learners.

      You can find more resources for each syllabus on the School Support Hub.

    • These classroom-ready resources have been developed in response to feedback from both teachers and examiners. 

      They are designed to help build learner confidence through practice and skills development. 

      These skills align to the assessment objectives of the syllabus which together, provide a set of tools which equip learners to think and communicate within the subject discipline.

      Skills Exercises include:

      • topic-specific exercises with suggested classroom activities and teaching approaches, such as group work and class discussion
      • worksheets and suggested answers are also available.

      These activities and worksheets can be completed as a class using an interactive board, in groups or individually according to differentiated needs.

      Worksheets are interactive or can be printed off as hard copies.