Impact Level 4 case study: The Economist Educational Foundation: Topical Talk
Impact Level 4 case study: The Economist Educational Foundation: Topical Talk
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Context
Context
The Economist Educational Foundation gives teachers everything they need to have informed, open-minded and inspiring discussions about current affairs. Ten to sixteen-year-olds learn to listen, be creative, solve problems and speak effectively about the most important issues of our time, from inequality to climate change.
The Foundation provides a free online library of lessons, updated weekly. Over 11,000 global account holders access these resources, along with invitations to live lessons, workshops and support on how to measure the skills. Lessons are packed with thought-provoking oracy activities and opportunities to reflect on skills progress.
The charity’s annual Festival is the world's biggest news festival for young people. In 2024 over 300 classes from 17 countries took part in a ten-week programme that connected young people with each other and topic experts. They took part in weekly classroom lessons and joined conversations on the online Hub, where they shared their experiences of the news stories affecting their lives, got feedback from experts and entered prestigious competitions.
Example of a Teacher assessment survey used to track progress
How the programme has achieved Impact Level 4
How the programme has achieved Impact Level 4
The Foundation helps teachers and young people to understand why the essential skills, as defined by Skills Builder, are important for engaging with current-affairs. Its materials and communications also show why skilful engagement with topical issues can support young people to succeed in the modern world, in employment and beyond.
The Foundation publishes its model for high-quality current-affairs discussions, using the Skills Builder names and icons for creativity, problem-solving, speaking and listening, to show what young people should practise when talking about the news. Their teaching resources identify which Skills Builder skills each lesson will develop (as well as the knowledge they will build), using the Skills Builder names and icons, building familiarity among the students.
The Foundation’s resources identify particular steps and include learning activities designed to help pupils master this step. They are carefully designed to cover multiple key steps and support pupils to progress.
The charity also provides skills-focused questions cards for teachers (pictured), designed to build pupils’ skills through questioning in current-affairs discussions.
When working in placed-based communities, the charity refers teachers to the Skills Builder Framework to measure their students’ progress. Its teaching resources include prompts, questions and reflections to help pupils assess their progress in the skills. On the Foundation’s online platform, teachers give young people feedback on their use of the skills, and award stars when they see the skills being used well.
Teachers and students are encouraged and supported to track and quantify progress over time. For example, teachers are asked to provide data on their pupils’ skill levels at the beginning and end of specific projects. Students complete a survey reflecting on their skills progress at the end of these.
Benefits for the organisation
Benefits for the organisation
Students share that a focus on skills helps them to have better conversations about the news:
"The skills have helped a lot to understand more about, not just the news, but talking and reasoning with friends about issues and hearing a wide range of opinions, as well as sharing mine."
Emily Evans, Founder and Chief Executive of The Economist Educational Foundation reflected that:
“Embracing the Skills Builder Framework as fully as possible is great for The Economist Educational Foundation. It helps us to rigorously demonstrate why it’s important for young people to join high-quality discussions about current affairs.
These discussions are a powerful way to build not only knowledge but essential critical-thinking and communication skills. Skills Builder helps us to show this, by allowing us to rigorously measure young people’s skills progress.
Skills Builder also helps us to communicate the benefits of these skills, by providing a common language and a growing evidence-base indicating the impact of problem-solving, creativity, speaking and listening on life outcomes.”
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