Skills for Life: Community Participation
Community participation is a Skills for Life unit in which learners find out about local services, learn about active citizenship and sustainability, and plan, take part in and evaluate a community activity or project. It is one 20 hour unit that learners combine with others into a Skills for Life or Skills for Work Award, Certificate or Diploma. Digital demand is low because no assessment criterion requires digital work. Digital skills sit in researching local services online, making posters, leaflets or digital content to promote an initiative, planning the activity, and exploring online platforms for community change such as FixMyStreet.
- Awarding body
- WJEC
- Level
- Entry Level 1 to Level 2
- Guided learning hours
- 20
- First taught
- September 2027
- Amount of digital work
- Low
How this unit is assessed
- Entry Level (Entry 1, Entry 2, Entry 3): Three learning outcomes (knowing the community and local services, active citizenship and sustainability, and taking part in a simple community activity or project), each with assessment criteria at Entry 1, Entry 2 and Entry 3. Evidence goes in a portfolio, internally assessed by the centre and externally quality assured by WJEC. 20 guided learning hours.
- Level 1 and Level 2: Four learning outcomes (understanding the community and local services, the impact of active citizenship and sustainability, planning and taking part in a community activity or project, and evaluating it), each with assessment criteria at Level 1 and Level 2. Evidence goes in a portfolio, internally assessed by the centre and externally quality assured by WJEC. 20 guided learning hours.
Skills that use Communication
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Communicating with partners and keeping digital evidence
Listed sources of evidence include digital evidence such as slides, emails and online research outputs, photographs of learners taking part, and short reflections recorded as audio or video. Learners may email a community partner and keep their evidence organised in a digital portfolio. None of this is required by the criteria, so it is taught rather than assessed.
DCF: Communication, Storing and sharing
Getting pupils ready
- Year 7
- Pupils save photos of their class recycling activity into a named folder and add a one line caption to each.
- Year 8
- Pupils write a polite email to a local charity shop asking about volunteering, with a clear subject line and a signature.
- Year 9
- Pupils keep an online portfolio for a community project with folders for planning, photos and a recorded reflection, renaming files so each one is easy to find.
Show the specification wording and the DCF statements
Where it is in the specification: Sources of evidence, pages 9 and 10; Skills for Life and Work specification, section 4.1, page 18
“Digital evidence, such as slides, emails, or online research outputs.”
Progression step 3
I can exchange online communications, making use of a growing range of available features, e.g. add attachments or hyperlinks, change formatting.
I can manage files and folders locally or online, e.g. move files to a folder.
Progression step 4
I can select and use different online communication tools for specific purposes with higher levels of competence, e.g. set up and manage an address book, organise contacts, use advanced features of e-mail provider (signature, auto reply, read receipt, widgets).
I can use appropriate advanced file management techniques, e.g. version history, restore previous version, tagging, compression.
Good to know
- The unit codes are S604E1, S604E2, S604E3, S604L1 and S604L2, and the unit is 20 guided learning hours (Unit overview, page 3).
- No special equipment is needed: "Assessment of this unit should not require any specific resources" (Resources required for assessment, page 11).
- Evidence can be digital or spoken. Possible sources include "Photographs of learners taking part in community-based tasks or activities" and "Short learner reflections (written, audio, video, or scribed)" (Sources of evidence, page 9), and "extended written work is not required unless appropriate" (page 9).
- Suggested assessment tasks "are not mandatory" and teachers may adapt them or write their own (Skills for Life and Work specification, section 4.1, page 18).
- AI rules apply to the portfolio: misuse includes "Failing to acknowledge use of AI tools when they have been used as a source of information" (specification, section 4.6, page 21).
- The pack notes that planned UK limits on social media for under 16s "may impact some of our qualifications" (page 2), which matters for any online campaign work.
- Appendix A maps the unit to Digital competence, along with Numeracy, Critical thinking and problem solving and Personal effectiveness (specification, Appendix A, page 28).
Links with other qualifications
The pack names GCSE Social Studies and VCSE Public Services as related WJEC qualifications, and Democracy in action, Equality, diversity and inclusion, Ethical choices, Everyday law, Faith and belief in the community, Sustainability in action, Teamwork, Values for life and Sustainable economic development as closely related Skills Suite units. Researching local services and sustainability issues also links with GCSE Geography, and making promotional posters and leaflets links with GCSE Digital Technology.
Source: WJEC Community participation unit delivery and assessment pack, read with the WJEC Entry 1 to Level 2 Skills for Life and Skills for Work specification, approved by Qualifications Wales, teaching from September 2027 (© WJEC CBAC Ltd 2026).