KEY+ in Education brings together all the key materials to support the planning, delivery, and evaluation of KEY+ within educational settings. These resources have been developed in collaboration with schools and young people, ensuring they are practical, relevant, and responsive to real experiences in education. Whether you are new to the programme or already delivering KEY+, the materials are designed to help you communicate effectively, support young people, and capture the impact of your work.
All the resources you need to deliver high-quality provision can be accessed directly from this page. They can be used flexibly depending on your role and context. At times, The Key works directly with youth organisations to provide KEY+ as part of a fully funded offer. Where this is the case, please use the guidance and templates provided to support a consistent and standardised approach. If you have any questions about delivering KEY+ in Education, please contact the team at theteam@thekeyuk.org.
1. Getting Started
KEY+ in Education can be used within schools and other educational settings delivered by existing teaching staff or external youth organisations trained as Key Facilitators.
As an external organisation going into schools to deliver KEY+ it is important to establish clear communication with schools and commit to this being on-going and timely.
Use the drop down below to guide you through getting started with KEY+ in your setting.
Check the school website for a named Head of Year you want to work with or a Pastoral Lead.
If you want to work with Year 7 (Year 9 in three-tier schools), check to see if there is a transition to Secondary/High School lead.
It's also useful to include a Deputy Head or Assistant Principal as getting someone from the Senior Leadership Team (SLT) on board early is often key to successfully getting into a school.
Secure a signed partnership agreement
It is important to secure a signed partnership agreement as soon as possible after agreeing to deliver KEY+ in a school. Once you have a signed partnership agreement, it can be used as a point of reference should communications become problematic.
As you won't always see your school contact when you're in school, regular email updates are a useful way of maintaining a positive relationship and ensuring smooth delivery of the programme.
Encourage your school contact to make the Senior Leadership Team aware of the benefits of the KEY+ Challenge - this will make the whole process smoother. Motivate your school contact to share the concept of the KEY+ Challenge with as many school staff as possible - this will make both theirs and your role easier when it comes to supporting young people.
The more people who know about the KEY+ Challenge in the school, the more the young people will be congratulated and recognised for their work and the greater the impact!
It is important to highlight to schools that the KEY+ Challenge is to be delivered with youth work principles in mind and request that they support you to ensure young people are:
Click on the images below to see the different resources that will help you to get started with the KEY+ Challenge.
2. Promoting KEY+ in Education
This section is here to guide you through what KEY+ in Education is all about and show you the resources available to support everyone involved. Whether you're a student curious about the challenge, a parent or guardian looking to understand it better, or a member of staff preparing to facilitate it, there's something here for you.
The materials are divided into student-facing and school-facing assets, click the images to view:
Student-Facing Materials
School-Facing Materials
2a. Promoting KEY+ Transitions
KEY+ Transitions is an adapted version of the KEY+ Challenge, designed to support young people as they move through key stages in their education, helping them adapt to new environments, challenges, and expectations. It focuses on making the transition to secondary school smoother whilst building confidence, resilience, and essential skills for success.
To help students and parents/guardians understand and engage with the transitions programme, we have adapted our flyer and video appropriately:
3. Facilitator Role & Session Guides
One of the key ingredients in KEY+ is you! Having a trusted adult involved is central to successful youth engagement and is consistently highlighting by young people as something they value the most.
Watch the video below to see how, together with KEY+, you can make a real difference.
In collaboration with youth workers, teachers and young people, the following documents (Session Guide PowerPoint and Workbooks) have been developed to lead you through the programme from start to finish.
Top Tip (PPT): Review the notes section on each slide and work through at your own pace focusing on the needs of the learners.
4. Impact Measurement Tools
Gathering feedback and evidence is a great way to communicate the impact of the programme within the school. They may also have particular focus that they want to impact.
Review the following tools to see if they are useful to use to aid impact reporting. Remember on your facilitator dashboard in KIT you can always check in on groups progress through the impact report.
When taking part in a funded activity we will work with you to produce an impact report to share.
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