This is sponsored content.

ASDAN is an education charity and awarding organisation providing courses, accredited curriculum programmes and regulated qualifications.

Project-based learning is often spoken of with enthusiasm, yet in many schools it remains on the fringes of curriculum planning. While exams offer a valuable measure of attainment, an over-reliance on test-driven learning can narrow the skills learners develop. Increasingly, educational leaders are asking how schools can nurture critical thinking, independence and creativity alongside academic rigour.

Cath Moss is head of curriculum development at the education charity and awarding organisation ASDAN. She asserts that project-based learning offers a vital answer. “Project learning has sometimes been seen as a nice-to-have, but not an essential,” she says. “That’s a shame, because it’s precisely the kind of learning that builds resilience, creativity and motivation – skills that exams alone can’t measure.”

Drawing on over three decades of experience designing practical, skills-based programmes and qualifications, ASDAN has seen the long-term benefits of structured project learning. Its framework emphasises six core skills: learning, communicating, decision making, thinking, team working and self-awareness. Once labelled ‘soft skills’ and dismissed as merely behavioural characteristics, these are now widely recognised as core executive function skills – vital capacities for planning, problem solving and self-management.

“Executive function has become a central part of how employers and educators define readiness,” Cath notes. “These skills underpin not just employability, but personal growth. They help learners understand themselves, make choices and take responsibility for their learning.”

Supporting inclusion

Schools today face intense pressures: accountability demands, workload challenges and increasing complexity in student needs. In this context, Cath suggests that well-structured project learning is not an additional burden but a practical tool. “We know teachers are under pressure,” she says. “That’s why project learning needs to be clear, purposeful and flexible. When it’s designed well, it becomes a support, not an extra task.”

The approach by the likes of ASDAN balances flexibility with clarity, offering structured outcomes that gives students ownership of their project choices. This model aligns closely with Ofsted’s Inclusion Framework and the Gatsby Benchmarks, enabling schools to strengthen both inclusive practice and career-related learning.

Preparing learners for life beyond the classroom

Project-based courses are not positioned as a replacement for examinations. Rather, they complement test-based learning by creating space for curiosity and personal agency. “We want all learners, regardless of traditional academic ability, to experience the satisfaction of seeing a project through from idea to outcome,” Cath notes. “That’s what builds motivation and self-belief.”

As schools seek to prepare young people for an unpredictable future, the question is no longer whether project-based learning has value, but how effectively it can be implemented. By embedding meaningful, skill-rich projects within a balanced curriculum, leaders can ensure that students leave school not just with qualifications, but with the ability to thrive.

To explore how ASDAN’s skills-based, project-centred courses can help you embed meaningful and inclusive learning in your curriculum, visit the ASDAN website.