Skills and Capabilities Image

Skills and Capabilities

At the heart of the curriculum lies an explicit emphasis on the development of skills and capabilities for life-long learning and for contributing effectively to society.  These whole curriculum skills and capabilities consist of the Cross-Curricular Skills and Thinking Skills and Personal Capabilities.  They are embedded and infused throughout the revised Northern Ireland Curriculum at each key stage and pupils should have opportunities to acquire, develop and demonstrate these skills in all areas of the curriculum.

The Education (Other Skills) Order (Northern Ireland) 2007

Cross-curricular Skills

Schools will be required to assess and report annually on each pupil’s progression in the cross-curricular skills.  In Key Stages 1 to 3 this will be with reference to Levels of Progression frameworks.

The cross-curricular skills are:

  • Communication
  • Using Mathematics
  • Using ICT

Thinking Skills and Personal Capabilities

The ability to think both critically and creatively and to develop personal and inter-personal skills and dispositions is essential for functioning effectively in a changing world. Therefore, the development of Thinking Skills and Personal Capabilities (TS&PC) is at the heart of the revised curriculum from Foundation Stage to Key Stage 4.

Watch Thinking Skills and Personal Capabilities clip from DVD This excerpt from the 'Planning for Implementation' DVD introduces the concepts behind TS&PC and also shows how some schools are helping their pupils to develop TS&PC.