Developing Core Skills in Teenagers

Part of OEA’s work is to support development of Core Skills in teenagers through the various activities we run, and to pass these approaches on to other adults who have the opportunity to work with young people. These are the skills that are needed for a liveable future. They are also the skills that employers need, but say are lacking, in their young employees.

The core team for this project are Dr Rachel Bray, Dr Kim Polgreen and Phoebe Mortimer. All of us have many years of experience working with teenagers, and understand the impact of the way in which adults approach learning experiences on the wellbeing and ability to learn of teenagers.

There are many definitions and lists of core skills. We are keeping it simple and putting them into three buckets (with lots of examples!):

Self nurturing skills: e.g. self confidence, speaking to others, looking after your health and wellbeing, keeping yourself safe and content, advocating for yourself, taking initiative, finding intrinsic motivation, cultivating skills, finding joy.
Relational skills: e.g. working with others, listening and empathising, encouraging others, building community, resolving conflicts.
Thinking skills: e.g. problem solving, seeing connections, noticing discrepancies, seeking evidence and logic, following authentic and informed sources of information.

We have developed a training session for employers who are offering work experience to teenagers and want to ensure the experience is successful for all. The next open session is in person in Oxford on 1st December from 10am - noon at Oxford Town Hall.

We are running bespoke sessions for employers, starting with the University of Oxford on 25th September 2026.