Tuesday 14 December 2010

Making Sense of Functional Skills Newsletter Dec 14th

Our fortnightly look at the world of Functional Skills.

In this issue, the last before the Christmas break, we feature Functional Skills at BETT 2011, more on section 96 qualifications, the latest on school funding and the pupil premium plus a new video looking at the brand new features and benefits in Guroo 2.0

Functional Skills at BETT 2011 - The BETT show is held at Olympia from Wednesday 12th to Saturday 15th January. We did a search of all exhibitors to see who was focusing on Functional Skills and Foundation Learning and the following companies came out on top:

  • Guroo - J11, National Hall Main Floor.
  • CIA Training - SW26, National Hall Gallery.
  • BKSB - T10, National Hall Gallery.
  • Creating Careers - SW4, National Hall Gallery
  • Amazing Interactives - L49, National Hall Main Floor.
  • Making Sense of Functional Skills presentation in the Software Theatre SW5 on Thursday at 1pm.

Schools funding and pupil premium - Judging by announcements on Sunday and Monday, it looks like schools funding will just about keep pace with inflation but the introduction of the pupil premium (£430 for all FSM pupils) will mean some re-distribution from April 2011. Without wanting to bring politics into the discussion, reality indicates that a higher proportion of FSM pupils will be involved in Foundation Learning so the extra funding is a welcome addition to the funding landscape for this group. More on the story here.

Section 96 qualifications stopped. We understand that all post-16 and pre-16 qualifications have been approved where they meet the criteria, but a number of pre 16 qualifications are still being examined to identify if they are QCF replacements for NQF qualifications. Ofqual are unlikely to approve ANY qualifications for pre-16 learners until the Wolf report is published around Easter. The effect of this is actually quite large, as it covers pretty much every new qualification designed for schools including new BTEC and OCR Nationals. A full list of funded qualifications is here.

What's new in Guroo 2.0 video - Brand new randomised Functional Skills quizzes, the release of My Functional SkillsTM to track learning progress, and significant updates to the layout, interactive tasks, multimedia and download documents means Guroo 2.0 is a long "hop" forward in Functional Skills resources. Find out what's new in this 12 minute video - click the seasonal logo below (or go to www.guroo.info/#g2).

Next issue! The next issue of the Functional Skills newsletter will be after the New Year on Tuesday 4th January. If you have a story, a question or a suggestion - please contact jwells@guroo.co.uk Please also feel free to forward this newsletter to your Functional Skills friends, it's free, informative and occasionally just a little bit of fun.

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