off on holiday

It's 25 years since Mrs Wells became Mrs Wells and to celebrate that auspicious occasion, we're off on a round the Canary Islands cruise leaving dogs, cats and kids in charge of house and cars.

So the Functional Skills blog will resume in a couple of weeks.

FE Colleges out for themselves

I've long argued that too many things are done for the benefit of the college rather than for the benefit of the students and indirectly for the benefit of the employer and a new survey seems to endorse this.

In the TES this week.

Employers trumped by sector on training

Further Education | Published in TESS on 21 May, 2010 | By: Joseph Lee

• Section:

  Further Education

Private industry’s investment in training is many billions of pounds smaller than claimed and dwarfed by public-sector spending, new research reveals in a forthcoming report.

A study by the UK Inquiry into the Future for Lifelong Learning calculated the total expenditure by employers at £16.2 billion, far lower than industry claims of £39 billion. It excludes the cost of employees’ time for training, which accounts for the difference.

Total Government spending, including its funding of FE, training public- sector employees and £3.7 billion of tax relief for employers, comes to £25.5 billion, in excess of 50 per cent more than the private sector.

If the amount spent by the voluntary sector and individuals is added, the total spent on adult learning rises to £55 billion, or 3.9 per cent of GDP.

The figures also suggest that the public sector invests in training at almost twice the rate of private industry, accounting for nearly 40 per cent of expenditure on skills by employers, while only being responsible for 22 per cent of workers.

Individuals should receive tax relief for training along with businesses, the inquiry recommends, suggesting that older people or those in lower skilled jobs could be targeted in particular. And it suggests that the tax relief for businesses should be tied to educational targets on participation and qualifications, in recognition of the support from public funds.

Susan Anderson, director of education and skills at the Confederation of British Industry, said that it was only right for employers to count the time spent training off the job. And she rejected suggestions that business contributed too small a portion of Britain’s investment in training.

She said: “Employers are spending a lot of money on training their workforce. They spend as much as they need to spend for their specific needs. What’s important isn’t how much is spent, but the outcome - which is a skilled workforce.”

The CBI would not support extending tax relief for training in the current fiscal circumstances, Ms Anderson said, nor introducing targets for businesses that currently benefit. She said productivity was a better measure of success than qualifications.

the cuts are starting

BECTa seems to be the first to go.

lots of press (educational) press comment about it quoting savings £55m a year against costs of £65m a year so the other £10m was good value.

I don't know if that £65m is true. Certainly some numbers clearly add up to this but Becta always favoured the large company and complex bid process so arguably, the price quotes was too high anyway.

Certainly, speaking as the representative of a small company, we were never encouraged by Becta to do innovative things as these weren't "standard" and we certainly never got anywhere with tenders because we could never spend the money or time to get really good at responding to them. Indeed, my requests to heard often fell on deaf ears. It is a shame about the people as the vast majority are hard working but my understanding is that many knew the writing was on the wall.

Wonder who, or indeed, what is next?

FS News May 18

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

The big stories from the election and coalition have pushed out most smaller stories but we found another QCDA video about Functional Skills in GCSE, some technical information about QCF credits, new publications about work experience in Diplomas and transition arrangements for Functional Skills English.

A very enthusiastic and positive video! Turton High School teach Functional Skills discretely at KS3. This video looks at their approach and features more great evidence that students actually like doing Functional Skills (and teachers like teaching them as well!)

Functional Skills worth 5 QCF credits. The DCSF (this was pre DFE) have advised that 5 QCF credits is equivalent to a notional learning time of 50 hours which accords to the 45 GLH assigned to Functional Skills plus 5 hours for personal studies. Although there are no credits in the NQF, it is accepted that functional skills on the NQF will have an equivalent value of 5 credits and this has been agreed for both Foundation Learning and Apprenticeships. This is a policy decision by DCSF.

More QCDA stuff. A new 16 page booklet about work experience in diplomas and news about transition arrangements for students who pass some elements of English but not all.

The jokes and switchover have started. During the period when all www.DCSF.gov.uk sites are being gradually updated and replaced by www.education.gov.uk sites, our twitter and google alerts have picked up several spoof sites and stories (at least we think they are spoofs and they may not be around for long). Try www.education.gove.uk the twitter tags @education.gov.uk and @educationgoveuk whilst the new DfE have their own twitter feed at @educationgovuk

Functional Skills resources from Guroo

Last minute GCSE revision? Try mixing Maths with iPods!

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ASCL call for general diploma

Mind, having written the last post saying there was so little news, I did in fact pick this up when glancing through the TES which this week took about 3 minutes - is it me of is the TES just a waste of landfill?

Anyway, John Dunford wrote an open letter (could be seen as demands or warnings or indeed pleadings0 to Michael Gove.

Point 6 is

6. Strengthen post-14 qualifications by introducing a general diploma with a broad core of knowledge and skills.

Now how interesting is that - posted by Jonathan.

Been a funny old week for news

The election, the coalition, the change in name as well from DCFS to DFE, even the change in logo from cuddly, colourful and playful to clear, stark and simple.

So there was loads of education news, but it's all big stuff and as I focus solely on Functional Skills and Diplomas, there actually isn't a lot to report.

I'm pretty sure this will change as Gove, Teather, Gibb and Laughton get settled in, we'll start to see more activity, I just hope they hold the line on keeping Functional Skills as a rigorous, meaningful and essential qualification.

Jonathan Wells, Guroo Functional Skills

What is Functionally Illiterate and innumerate

A big piece in the TES today and I will say first of all that I'm surprised it's just 20%.

I'm not sure what Functionally means though as in my experience, even students with a grade C in Maths are occasionally innumerate and have the qualification because they have been well schools in passing that exam.

Makes interesting, if unsurprising reading.

Functional Skills Newsletter May 4th

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

Diploma research from DCSF, Functional Skills in Foundation Learning video, Guroo goes superfast and more accredited exams.

168 pages of DCSF research about diplomas! A weighty report this one and even I can't justify the use of a bank holiday to read it all. So instead I did a search for functional skills and it threw up in the "Key Findings" section:

• There were some challenges faced in teaching Functional Skills and mapping the skills to principal learning
• Learners were likely to understand the need to pass Functional Skills
• There continued to be some uncertainty about the best way to teach Functional Skills
• Consortia would benefit from further support and guidance on how to link Functional Skills with principal learning
• The perceived disparity between the assessment approach and the aim of Functional Skills should be considered and Awarding Bodies should be encouraged to review the level of difficulty of level 2 exams

Functional Skills in Foundation Learning. A new QCDA video filmed at Lewisham College. We particularly liked the English teacher towards the end who said "Functional Skills is much better, you can really, really teach and its enjoyable. Final word to the Principal "Functional Skills is the strong spine that supports the rest of the learning of the student". We couldn't agree more!

Superfast Guroo. Regular readers will know this newsletter just occasionally mentions Guroo - after all, they do pay the author! The company is delighted to say that a rack of brand new servers has now gone live with quad this and gigabytes of that. Basically it's all really fast now.

Choices, choices - more accredited awarding bodies. We did say it wouldn't be too long before Ofqual approved more Functional Skills exams and we were right. There's now 44 from Edexcel, NOCN, AQA, C&G, WJEC and OCR and there's more to come! A summary is below - full details on the ofqual site here.

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Couldn't agree more!

Targets not tests are bad for children

Teachers should have boycotted the way SATs are taught, not the tests themselves

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• • Deborah Orr
  • The Guardian, Thursday 29 April 2010
  • Article history

So headteachers are boycotting Sats. Pity they didn't just boycott teaching to the test from the start. When I was at school, we were tested every year, by our teachers. There was no coaching, no distorting lessons so the school's results would look good; just a useful check on how we had been doing, so the teachers would know exactly who was where with what.

It is not the tests that headteachers should be boycotting, it is the slavish emphasis on drilling children to be prepared for them. Tests don't hurt children. But the way they are prepared for them – as little automatons whose correct answers will please the government – sure as hell does.

I agree 100% - Jonathan