Functional Skills Newsletter June 7th

June 7th - the Functional Skills newsletter

This week we have items about which of the Awarding Organisations are the most popular for Functional Skills; news about the Enhancing Literacy and Numeracy conference; photos of prize winners; a request to please "Plus 1" www.guroo.info and a summary of press comment.

Enhancing Literacy and Numeracy conference - Next steps for SfL and Functional Skills - July 6th in London.

We're very happy to include notification of this conference organised by our friends at Neil Stewart Associates. They write:

The majority of the 2020 workforce is already out of formal education. The Wolf Review made a number of recommendations including ensuring that those on vocational routes post-16 continue to study English and mathematics. We know that to maintain the drive to improve basic literacy, language and numeracy, and ensure all adults have a basic platform for employability, the skills system must respond to those already in employment.

This annual ‘Skills for Life’ conference brought to you by 157 Group and NRDC (National Research and Development Centre for Adult Literacy and Numeracy), will give you the opportunity to:

• Examine the critical challenges for life-long learning in the UK and hear how adult learning is equipping the economy to meet these challenges
• Hear how colleges and training institutions are building the capacity of their numeracy provision to ensure it is sufficient to support people to reach the functional level
• Share experiences and innovative ideas for embedding SfL/functional skills into existing curriculum areas
• Review the latest developments in the functional skills agenda, including structure, standards and assessment methods
• Set out the opportunities for employers of enhancing work-based learning
• Examine the role of technology and its contribution to new teaching methods

Now in its 8^th year it features an expert line-up of speakers for you to hear, meet and network with including:

• Robert Pheasant, Head of Skills for Life, Learning and Skills Improvement Service (LSIS)
• Karen Adriaanse HMI, National Adviser for Employability, Ofsted
• Helen Casey, Executive Director, NRDC
• Nick Linford, Lsect
• Jill Lanning, Chief Executive, Federation of Awarding Bodies
• Lee Davies, Deputy Chief Executive, Institute for Learning

Register here or contact jacqueline.gorman@neilstewartassociates.co.uk (please mention the Functional Skills newsletter)

Which Awarding Bodies are most active in Functional Skills?

The annual qualifications market report from Ofqual was published last week. In the last year of the pilot, just over 240,000 Functional Skills qualifications were awarded.

AQA is the biggest provider of GCSE with 45% of the market followed by Edexcel with 22% and OCR with 21%. What I find interesting is how this compares to Functional Skills.

The most popular choice of awarding body for Functional Skills was split between Edexcel and AQA with C&G and OCR in third and fourth spot respectively so Edexcel are clearly outperforming their competitors in Functional Skills qualifications!

Take That Lynn plus 1!

Two prizes here, one for Lynn Preston of YH Training in Scarborough who in turn ran another competition for the other ticket won by Paula!

We're sorry about the quality of the photograph, but it does show Lynn with "the boys" in the background!

In the press over the last couple of weeks.

The Daily Telegraph has an interview with Tim Oates from Cambridge Assessment about the need for "rigorous" vocational qualificiations at 16.

The Guardian reports on the latest BIS report that employability skills are the key to success in prison education.

The Excellence Gateway has been revamped as LSIS bring together resources from a number of different systems under one roof however the section on Functional Skills does seem to lean heavily on OCR resources - perhaps there's more work to be done there!

FE News has a report on how the skills gap is contributing to record levels of youth unemployment.

The TES carried a story about the demand for STEM from business and the issues that the education system was finding in supplying this demand.