May 24th - the Functional Skills newsletter

May 24th - the Functional Skills newsletter

The last newsletter of this half term sees us covering the Government's response to Wolf specifically relating to Functional Skills, the power of Twitter, the opportunity to become an affiliate of MyGuroo (Functional Skills revision resources for the independent learner) and links to free Functional Skills resources on the web.

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Government response to the Wolf report (Functional Skills)

Since the Government's response was published in full, we've been through the report and picked out all of the comments and recommendations related to Functional Skills.

• Causes of failure include young people doing adult qualifications and students without a solid grounding in the basics being allowed to drop English and maths.
• For those who do not achieve GCSE by age 16, introducte English and maths qualifications that provide significant progress towards future GCSE success. These qualifications to be included in the performance tables.
• Reform GCSE to ensure they are a reliable indicator of achievement in the basics and how spelling, punctuation and grammar can be strengthened in GCSEs.
• Including performance measures that capture the full range of outcomes for pupils including the variation in performance of low and high attaining pupils.
• Publish a review of Foundation Learning in the summer
• Publish a review of teaching the most disengaged by December 2011
• Review funding to ensure Level 2 English and maths is fully funded until 19-24 year olds have achieved passes in both.
• Focus funding and performance measures on core areas of English and maths and on employment outcomes rather than the accrural of qualifications.
• Functional Skills and GCSE will be the ONLY recognised pathways to achieving an Apprenticeship with Key Skills being phased out as the Government accepts that Key Skills are not considered a suitable qualification.
• Consultation on English and maths qualifications for 16-18 year olds to be held in the summer and autumn.

If you're interested in following the wider aspects of the review of vocational learning, we'd recommend joining the facebook group the Big Vocational Debate

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Become an affiliate of MyGuroo - Functional Skills revision resources for the independent learner

This will appeal to trainers, consultants, advisers, writers, speakers, personal tutors and indeed those involved in supporting independent learners of Functional Skills.

With the launch of www.MyGuroo.co.uk an affiliate programme has also been launched. To become an affiliate is really very straightforward, it's free to join and potentially very rewarding! Simply follow the three easy steps by signing up for a free account in MyGuroo then choosing to become an affiliate or click the image below.

Once registered, you'll be given a referrer code to use and the free tools make it easy to link your sites to MyGuroo. If you'd like to have a chat about being an affiliate - just call Jonathan or Stewart on 0191 305 5045.

www.myguroo.co.uk functional skills resources for the independent learner

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The Power of Twitter

We've been following various tags on Twitter for a little while, including #functionalskills and #guroofs and where we can help a little, we do.

With all the exams of the last couple of weeks, things really seemed to get quote busy and at one point, we spotted all these tweets on our "Tweetdeck".

You too can follow us - GurooFS and jwellsatguroo are the names you need.

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Links to Functional Skills resources

It's easy to search TES, Education.gov.uk or Promethean Planet but did you also know about these? All the links below will take you to (normally free) Functional Skills resources on the web:

Skillsworkshop features a wide collection of Functional Skills resources. Run by Maggie Harnew of Abingdon College and funded by an LSIS STAR award
Guroo always have several complete challenges available and free to use
Axis Education has a number of free to download worksheets
Functional Skills Support Programme and Excellence Gateway which have publicly funded resources from the pilot phase.

Functionalskills4u.com - A private website "not connected with any government organisations or examination boards. Its content has not been checked and you use it at your own risk. It has been created for students to use."

Fun Resources who operate from a PO Box with no other contact details

ICT Functional Skills from North West Learning Grid

Many of these sites will accept and share any Functional Skills resources you have developed. If you have created resources that could potentially be further developed into a full "Guroo Challenge" then we'd like to hear from you too ;-)