Guroo newsletter March 23

Our bi-weekly look at the world of Functional Skills.

Functional Skills and Foundation Learning budgets, getting employers involved, Delivering Diplomas Magazine issue 2 out now, news from the official line and a teeny advert from the Guroo guys.

At last - money for Functional Skills! DCSF have made an early announcement about the 14-19 support package for next financial year and it recognises the importance of Foundation Learning and Functional Skills.

"The main purpose of this grant is to enable you to prepare for Diploma delivery; however, we recognise that you want more flexibility to spend this funding in the way that will best help you prepare to deliver the reforms. Therefore, this year, you can also use some of this grant to prepare to deliver Foundation Learning and Functional Skills where this best meets your local needs."

More details from here - click through to the letter for actual amounts allocated.

It's food and drink for employer engagement. A criticism often heard is "will employers care, understand and take account of Functional Skills qualifications. The UK's biggest private employer (Tesco) is already on-board, and this story is a typical example of the moves to inform HR professionals across the country.

Delivering Diplomas Spring 2010 just published. Published to coincide with an excellent conference last week, the 52 page magazine is available here. Anyone who cares to respond to me at jwells@guroo.co.uk with nominations for the best article may very well win a couple of mugs, pens, badges and anything else with the guroo logo we have in the office that we can fit into a bag and post!

The official line. QCDA seem to have forgotten to place their latest newsletter on their website, the latest DCSF 14-19 newsletter, a similar offering from LSIS.

Accredited exam boards? We're still waiting for the accreditation announcement (due 19th March) about which boards have been approved to set Functional Skills assessments from September. We'll let you know when we've got it.

VLE flavours and Stewart "flexibility" Hutton? Finally a teeny advert for Guroo. The guys in the basement at Guroo Towers would like you all to know that the SCORM versions of Guroo resources are now up and running on a variety of VLEs including Moodle, itsLearning, Fronter and Sharepoint variants such as Kaleidos and LP+. Stewart (Sales Director) would like you to know that we have special March offers and that flexibility is his middle name. shutton@guroo.co.uk will get his attention.

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