Overview

Working as a whole class, in small groups or 1:1, the Skill City virtual reality environment enables you to lead discussion on critical issues around challenging or unsafe situations and experiences faced by your young people. It will help you to develop their personal resilience and awareness of risk through problem solving and decision making, using the lesson plans and resources provided to enhance and embed learning.

The programme can add value to your existing PSHE curriculum and be an integral part of your pastoral care programme.

Skill City is designed to work on the hardware you already have in class including interactive screens, laptops, tablets and even phones. 360 is a social enterprise, led by teachers for teachers, supported by funding and expertise from national and regional partners.

A unique learning programme

Experience Skill City, our interactive VR environment, and help your young people to navigate a range of real-life dilemmas. Through discussion, decision-making and reflection, help them to develop better risk awareness, preparing them for life, not just exams.

Learning objectives

Discover how 360 supports and matches your curriculum objectives.

Inspection frameworks

Find out how 360 helps you to be ready for inspection.

Keeping Children Safe In Education

Learn how 360 helps you meet the latest guidelines.

Programme content

Understand what 360 virtual reality, teaching plans and resources include.

Why use 360

Recognise the benefits of this unique classroom programme.

Feedback

See what young people and their teachers say about 360 Safeguarding.

360 aims to provide young people with knowledge and skills to make better decisions through:

  • Complementing existing PSHE programmes and enhancing pastoral provision in schools.
  • Initiating discussions within the classroom, encouraging young people to make decisions to support others and themselves.
  • Uunderstanding when and how to seek help.
  • Encouraging young people to adapt and thrive in times of rapid change.
  • Increasing self-awareness and self-confidence in challenging situations.
  • Raising awareness of current issues.

Learning Objectives

Inspection Frameworks

360 supports the Ofsted Inspection Framework. The programme will help you to:

  • Support learners to develop their character, including their resilience, confidence and independence.
  • Help learners know how to keep physically and mentally healthy.
  • Help teachers present subject matter clearly, promoting appropriate discussion about the subject matter they are teaching.
  • Help learners to remember over time the content they have been taught and to enable them to integrate new knowledge into larger concepts.

360 supports the HM Inspectors for Education (HMIE) Inspection Framework. The programme will help pupils to:

  • Learn about where to find help and resources to inform choices.
  • Assess and manage risk and understand the impact of risk-taking behaviour.
  • Develop the knowledge and understanding, skills, capabilities and attributes which they need for mental, emotional, social and physical wellbeing now and in the future.
  • Help learners develop their self-awareness, self-worth and respect for others.
  • Meet challenges, manage change and build relationships.
  • Build resilience and confidence.
  • Understand and develop physical, mental and spiritual wellbeing and social skills.

It will help you to ensure that your curriculum ‘effectively promotes safeguarding and wellbeing across all stages, taking good account of the context of the school.’

360 supports the Estyn Inspection Framework. The programme will help you to:

  • Enable learners to develop skills that prepare them well for the next stage of learning and life.
  • Provide learners sufficient opportunities to develop their skills in practical, real-life situations.

Please note: the 360 platform is not currently available in a Welsh language version. We are working to source funding for this.

360 supports Education Training Inspectorate (ETI) guidelines. The programme will help you to:

  • Facilitate open-ended activities and challenges.
  • Focus on explicit thinking.
  • Promote collaborative and independent learning.
  • Provide deliberate and explicit connections across learning experiences.
  • Deliver open-ended activities and challenges.
  • Focus on explicit thinking and encourage questioning.
  • Make meaningful connections beyond the classroom.
  • Help children know how to keep themselves safe and where to seek help (preventative curriculum).

Keeping Children Safe In Education (KCSIE)

The 360 Safeguarding module can support schools to implement the guidance for schools in England (updated summer 2022).

Opportunities to teach safeguarding p.33 – 128 & 130.

  • Governing bodies and proprietors should ensure that children are taught about how to keep themselves and others safe, including online.
  • Schools and colleges play a crucial role in preventative education.
  • Preventative education is most effective in the context of a whole-school or college approach that prepares pupils and students for life in modern Britain and creates a culture of zero tolerance for sexism, misogyny/misandry, homophobia, biphobic and sexual violence/harassment.

National Guidance for Child Protection in Scotland 2021

p45

  • 2.49 [This includes] helping children develop in their ability to keep themselves and others safe; and helping them learn how to get help and support if they need it.
  • 2.50 Some protective work is preventative and developmental. For example, ‘Personal and Social Education’ aims to provide children with the knowledge, skills and values associated with healthy choices and relationships, and preparation for adult life.

Keeping Learners Safe

The role of local authorities, governing bodies and proprietors of independent schools under the Education Act 2002

Pg47

Proactive approaches

  • 6.6 Prevention work should be integrated, where practical, into all aspects of an education setting’s life and addressed at all appropriate points in the curriculum. This will help create a positive ethos where learners have a safe environment in which to learn and have the opportunity and confidence to share concerns with others. Discussing the issues and listening to the views and opinions of peers can help change attitudes and provide support. When discussing sensitive issues, these need to be presented in a balanced way and ethical issues discussed objectively. However, it is equally important to equip learners to take responsibility for their behaviour in their personal relationships and to recognise inappropriate behaviour.

Pg61

Annex 1 Model Safeguarding Policy

2. Prevention

  • establish and maintain an ethos where children feel secure and are encouraged to talk, and are listened to ensure children know that there are adults in the education setting whom they can approach if they are worried or in difficulty.
  • include in the curriculum, activities and opportunities for relationships and sexuality education which equip children with the skills they need to stay safe from abuse and to know to whom to turn for help.
  • include in the curriculum material that will help children develop realistic attitudes to the responsibilities of adult life, particularly with regard to childcare and parenting skills.

Safeguarding and Child Protection in Schools A Guide for Schools (Updated June 2022)

Key Principles of Safeguarding and Child Protection

Pg1

Safeguarding begins with preventative education and activities which enable children and young people to grow up safely and securely in circumstances where their development and wellbeing is promoted.

Pg4

Safeguarding/Child Protection arrangements should be accessible in the school and understood by children so that they know what to do and who to go to.

Preventative Curriculum

Pg59

The curriculum also offers a medium to explore sensitive issues with children and young people in an age-appropriate way which helps them to develop appropriate protective behaviours.

In recent years, the use of “keeping safe messages” and the term “preventative curriculum” have become more widely used to denote the proactive promotion of positive emotional health and wellbeing of pupils within and across the broader school community.

This is achieved by raising awareness of social, emotional, and health issues, developing the confidence, resiliencies and coping skills of pupils, and in offering early intervention when pupils are experiencing certain difficulties.

Schools are well-placed to teach pupils how to develop healthy relationships, and to make informed choices in their lives so that they can protect themselves.

The ETI report ‘An evaluation of preventative education and the statutory curriculum to inform the Independent Inquiry into Child Sexual Exploitation’ published in September 2014 found that the schools with the most effective provision are proactive in identifying local issues and promote a preventative curriculum to build the confidence, self-esteem, and personal resiliencies of children so that they can develop coping strategies and can make more positive choices in a range of situations.

Programme Content

360 is an innovative programme that encourages creative and critical thinking, problem-solving, questioning, communication and collaboration. It promotes core behaviours such as resilience, respect, community, integrity and empathy.

Access to the programme includes:

  • The virtual reality Skill City environment, designed for whiteboard, laptops and tablets. School leads can add teachers and classes at their school with different access levels.
  • 18 interactive missions (6 for KS2 and 12 for KS3) relating to current issues such as mental and physical well-being, personal safety, drugs, alcohol, and tobacco, what to do in an emergency, online safety and the well-being of friends and family.
  • Lesson plans and resources to support each Skill City mission.
  • An extensive database of follow-up resources from external providers.
  • Briefing and support materials including FAQs, written guides, recorded video, and curated booklists in our online bookshop.
  • Support for all teaching staff through online drop-in sessions, phone and video calls and email throughout term time and during the school holidays.
  • Regular news, updates, and additional materials through the year.

Benefits of the 360 schools programme

Key benefits for your school and your pupils

Core skills for life

Pupils will develop creative and critical thinking, problem solving, resilience, respect for self and others, integrity, empathy to self & others, decision making, self-confidence, community, communication and collaboration skills.

Discuss. Decide. Do.

Using decision-based learning, the programme enables pupils to learn what to avoid or know what to do when faced with a potential Safeguarding incident.

Earlier intervention through heightened pupil awareness

With pupils recognising and having the confidence to communicate potential dangers, concerns are identified earlier and faster.

Experiential learning in a unique virtual environment

Explore a park, alleyway, bedroom, kitchen-diner, outside the school and skate park. Our VR environment brings decision-making to life in a safe, interactive environment. Remember, no specialist VR headsets required!

Fun and engaging learning

Stimulating scenario and role play based. Delivered by teachers using a virtual Skill City, classroom learning and where appropriate outdoor activities.

Materials from the specialists

Our programmes are developed and kept up to date in partnership with subject specialist agencies to ensure best practice and relevance.

Multi-user account

Schools can add multiple teachers to their own account, making it easy to administer.

Personalised dashboard

Manage and monitor curriculum delivery from one easy to access place.

Schools and pupil led content

Teachers and the children in their classrooms are at the centre of what we do. It’s why we involve both groups in the design and development of our programmes.

Special offer with The Safeguarding Company

Schools subscribing to both 360 and MyConcern from The Safeguarding Company can save 10%.

Teaching planning tools and resources

To support with delivery of statutory process (eg Safeguarding Boards/ Ofsted).

Wellbeing

The 360 programme will help to build pupils’ mental and physical health and well-being, resulting in happier and more fulfilled children.

Feedback from schools

An initial survey undertaken in June 2022 by Police Service Northern Ireland showed high levels of satisfaction with the pilot programme.

360 Feedback Survey

Evaluation

A full academic evaluation of schools use of 360 across England and Northern Ireland will be published in 2023.

What young people and their teachers say...

Funded Places

We currently have limited fully funded places for state primary or secondary schools (local authority or academies) in the following areas:-

  • Dorset or BCP council areas (NHS Dorset funded)
  • Mid Ulster, Northern Ireland (PSNI or Police Community Partnership funded)
  • Devon County Council area (council funded)
  • South West England (Devon, Cornwall and Isle of Scilly, Somerset, Gloucestershire, Wiltshire, Avon/Bristol)

Please get in touch as soon as possible to check if your school is eligible and to get your login.

Frequently asked questions

You’ll probably have lots of questions and our handy frequently asked questions section should help. But we’re here to help, so do contact us if you want to find out more.

Head to the login page and click ‘forgotten password’. If that doesn’t work, contact us.

Phase 1 on safeguarding, available from Spring 2022, is appropriate for 10-14 year olds. That’s Year 6 in England and Wales or Primary 7 in Northern Ireland and Scotland, to Year 9 in England and Wales, Year 10 in Northern Ireland and Secondary 3 in Scotland. (We don’t decide on the confusing differences in labelling!). We hope to extend provision to the whole primary age group very soon.

See our Teacher page for a full list of benefits. 360 is an innovative and exciting approach to leading PSHE sessions in school, which will engage, enthuse and inform the young people in your class – and help you meet curriculum, inspection and KCSiE objectives. You will also find it fun to teach.

In our first phase, covering Safeguarding for 10 – 14s, you will be able to access:-

  • The virtual reality Skill City, designed for whiteboards, laptops and tablets  
  • Six interactive scenarios for each year group (a total of eighteen) set in a park, alleyway, bedroom, kitchen-diner, outside the school and skate park. All are available to teachers, but you will be able to decide which ones you would like to use with your individual class or group, depending on content. Scenarios are based on PSHE learning outcomes
  • Accompanying lesson plans and 360 teaching resources  
  • A growing database of resources from other partners
  • Briefing and drop-in support sessions for teaching staff as well as support by email/ phone/ video call

Should any new phases come on stream during your membership, you will be able to access these with no additional charge.

In addition to the Skill City VR, 360 provides schemes of work, lesson plans and extension activities, reading lists, and a database of trusted resources from other organisations. Member schools also have access to onboarding and training materials, plus ‘live’ support by phone, email or video call.

There are no definitive answers, as much depends on context. Our aim is to teach young people to think, rather than simply remember random facts. However, our teaching plans will provide you with everything you need to initiate and support open discussions, learning about risk, and making confident decisions.

If you need to discuss this just get in touch.

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