We help schools recognise and develop the skills, values and character that grades alone can't capture — so every child is ready for whatever comes next.
Trusted by more than 40 leading schools
The Learning Skills Trust is the umbrella charity behind two connected frameworks — giving schools a clear, consistent way to develop and track the things that shape confident young adults.
Our flagship framework for prep and junior schools, with exit points at both Year 6 and Year 8 — developing and celebrating the skills, attitudes and behaviours children need to thrive at their next school.
Explore the PSB →
Our Skills Development Framework extends the same philosophy up to Year 13 — a full framework developed with the secondary schools that use it, built for the demands of modern education and beyond.
Explore the SDF →
Membership connects a network of schools, teachers and leaders — with a full meetings programme for teachers of all subjects to share best practice and CPD, plus Leaders', Heads' and Annual Conferences.
Meet our schools →These six core skills sit at the heart of the PSB. Every school makes them its own — adapting the language, or adding and removing skills, to fit its own ethos and approach.
Critical, creative and independent thought — the ability to reason, question and solve.
Expressing ideas with clarity and confidence, and listening as well as speaking.
Working with others toward a shared goal — the teamwork real life depends on.
Taking initiative, showing integrity and bringing others with you.
Self-direction, resilience and ownership of one's own learning.
Reflecting honestly, evaluating progress and always looking to improve.
A content-heavy curriculum tells you what a child knows. It says far less about how they think, collaborate, adapt and lead. That gap only widens as the world changes faster.
A trusted assessment model, refined over more than a decade, that prepares children for senior school academically, personally and socially.
Discover the PSB → Up to Year 13The next chapter — extending skills-based assessment into secondary education, built for how young people learn and grow today.
Discover the SDF →It's why we measure more than marks — and why so many of the country's leading schools have made skills part of how they define success.
Our story →
Whether you're exploring membership or just curious how a skills framework could work in your school, we'd love to talk.