Growth of NEETS

With NEETS now well past 1 million, we are now seeing a number of announcements to do with managing this pretty big number.

Here's another from DWP that will encourage employers to take on young jobless in jobs or as apprentices.

Let's hope that DWP equip them with Functional Skills before they join the programme!

Making Sense of Functional Skills Newsletter Nov 22nd

November 22nd - the Functional Skills newsletter

In this issue, we have more news about the Government's commitment to Apprenticeships, details of the launch of new features in Guroo 2.1, the event season is well and truly in full swing, and more details of the Functional Skills Wednesday Webinar programme.

The Government strengthen their commitment to Functional Skills in ALL Apprenticeship programmes.

Hot on the heels of the letter from John Hayes (Minister for FE and Skills) confirming that Functional Skills will be a mandatory component of ALL Apprenticeships, comes news from the Association of Colleges conference and from the Apprenticeship Summit held on 16th November.

John Hayes speech to AoC focused on innovation and deregulation in FE, many promises of red-tape cutting and more flexibility for Colleges to develop provision, plus further support for Apprenticeship growth along with a review of the quality of Apprenticeship provision.

Vince Cable announced money for SME employers to support new Apprenticeships (taken, it appears, from existing budgets), more focus on 16-18 and 19-24 apprenticeship programmes and the requiremment for all Apprenticeship providers to offer GCSE or Functional Skills Maths and English at Level 2 to all Apprentices.

Just to remind you, the Minister in his recent letter said

“I want to re-assure you that I am committed to replacing Key Skills with Functional Skills in English and Maths (and ICT if required by the framework), as a mandatory component of all Apprenticeship frameworks, from the end of September 2012."

So there we have it in black and white; absolute confirmation that Functional Skills in Apprenticeships is the way forward, and the Minister's confirmation that he sees Functional Skills as essential.

The full text of the letter is here.

Guroo 2.1 - new additions

English Initial Assessment and Diagnostic is now available in Guroo 2.1 alongside Maths. ICT will be available early in the next term to complete the solution. Key Features of the Guroo system include:

• Written specifically for Functional Skills with a wide variety of question types based around problem solving.
• Each set of questions covers all the Functional Skills criteria at that level, giving tutors a detailed diagnostic report with direct links to further teaching and learning resources.
• Randomised question variables and question order means you can carry out assessments with groups - and/or repeat them later - and get meaningful results each time.

New User and Group Admin features have also been released in Guroo 2.1

• User Admin lets you edit details like names and passwords on-the-fly and can also help with managing short stay, roll on/roll off learner communities, using blank logins that you personalise as you need them.
• Group Admin means you can now create your own groups of learners and tutors as you need to; for any purpose.

And finally ... nearly 300 new quiz questions have gone live in Level 1 cross-curriculum challenges (a similar number of Level 2 questions are expected to be released shortly) and lots of new interactive activities have been added to Entry Level resources.

14-19 events and other news

You'll find the Guroo team at "The Future of Apprenticeships" in London on November 24th. Click here for a link to the full programme. This is an event that Guroo will be attending as exhibitors.

We'll also be at LEACAN on Friday 2nd December in Leamington Spa.

The BETT show is at London Olympia from 11th January - it's a shame the organisers have dropped the FE and Skills category from the BETT Awards though.

The Learning Technologies & Learning Skills conference and exhibition is also at London Olympia from January 25th.

Apprenticeships UK are planning their conference on March 7th in London.

And Naace have their annual conference starting March 8th in Leicester.

Webinar Wednesday from Guroo

Our brand new programme of twenty-minute Wednesday Webinar events is going down really well - more than 20 people joined last week's webinar about Guroo Resources.

You can replay what we covered here.

The schedule moving forward is:

Wednesday 23rd at 4.05pm - Guroo 2.1 User and Group Admin

Wednesday 30th at 4.05pm - Cross Curriculum Resources

How does it work? It's easy; email us at info@guroo.co.uk (from your work email address please) and we'll send you full joining instructions. All you need is an online computer with speakers or headphones.

You can just sit back, watch and listen - or interact and ask questions via online chat.

Is Wednesday a bad day for you? Then email us and we'll sort something out just for you!

Controversial Budget thoughts

Just returning from an industry meeting today and there was much talk of "hands off Government". You get the budget to spend as you wish but don't expect to get any more if we ask you to do something else in the future. And a thought struck me in relation to Vince Cable's announcement about Providers having to teach Functional Skills maths and English to ALL Apprenticeships. That thought was driven by another comment on linked in about budgets.

What if the Government takes the view that they have ALREADY provided the budget to teach Functional English and maths and asking providers to continue teaching English and maths is just part of the overall picture.

How would providers manage in this perhaps very real scenario possibility?

Level 2 Functional Skills for all Apprentices

The joint announcements from John Hayes, Vince Cable and the Apprenticeship summit in London has led me to draw an interesting conclusion.

All providers will now be expected to offer English and maths to level 2 as part of ANY apprenticeship programme. Note it says says offer as opposed to pass, nevertheless, that's quite a big change. At the moment Apprentices typically follow Level 1 Key Skills, that has been changed to Functional Skills (latest change date is September) as confirmed by John Hayes.

So they will have to pass Level 1 Functional Skills as a minimum, now they must do Level 2 Functional Skills throughout their programme, presumably as part of the Government's push to get all 16-19 year olds continuing their maths and English study.

I have to say, excellent news for Functional Skills providers such as ourselves at Guroo!

Making Sense of Functional Skills Newsletter Nov 8th

November 8th - the Functional Skills newsletter

In this issue, we have very important news about the future of Functional Skills in Apprenticeships, an update from the Awarding Organsiations on how on-screen assessments are developing, events and news that are relevant to Functional Skills, and the launch of Wednesday Webinars from Guroo.

The Minister confirms that Functional Skills will replace Key Skills in all Apprenticeship programmes in September.

We received confirmation this week from John Hayes MP, the Minister of State for Further Education and Skills, that Functional Skills will definitely replace Key Skills by September.

The Minister said

“I want to re-assure you that I am committed to replacing Key Skills with Functional Skills in English and Maths (and ICT if required by the framework), as a mandatory component of all Apprenticeship frameworks, from the end of September 2012.

I was interested to read the finding from your own survey, particularly that there is a high level of confidence with Functional Skills across providers, colleges and schools. We know that Functional Skills involve high quality teaching away from the job and this is important to provide apprentices with an essential base of high quality transferable skills to support their career progression.”

So there we have it in black and white; absolute confirmation that Functional Skills in Apprenticeships is the way forward, and the Minister's confirmation that he sees Functional Skills as essential.

The full text of the letter is here.

Changes to on-screen assessments from the Awarding Organisations

In the same week that the Minister confirmed his support for Functional Skills, City & Guilds made an update announcement about Functional Skills assessments covering:

• Functional Skills Mathematics on-screen available now
• Functional Skills ICT on-screen arriving this month
• Anytime paper assessment moves closer

Click here for the City & Guilds annoucement.

Edexcel are following a similar path with an update to their progress towards on-screen assessments here.

And we know of at least one AO that is developing an assessment system where students sit their exam on a Friday, with results on Monday! Keep reading this newsletter for more information about all these developments.

14-19 events and other news

You'll find the Guroo team at "The Future of Apprenticeships" in London on November 24th. Click here for a link to the full programme. This is an event that Guroo will be attending as exhibitors.

Much as we'd love to be there, unfortunately we can't attend the Skills Conference in Nottingham this week. Have a great time if you're going and maybe we'll see you at this event next year.

Learning and Skills Network (LSN, one time managers of the Functional Skills Support programme and heavily involved in many aspects of 14-19 education and support) have gone into administration. More on this from FE Week here.

The Wednesday Webinar from Guroo

Guroo are delivering a series of "Wednesday Webinars" over the next few weeks.

Scheduled for late afternoon so you can grab a cuppa, click the link, and relax while we take you through an on-screen presentation in around 20 minutes.

• Wednesday 9th November - Initial Assessment and Diagnostics for Functional Skills by Guroo
• Wednesday 16th November - Teaching and Learning Resources for Functional Skills by Guroo
• Wednesday 23rd November - What's new in Guroo 2.1 (aimed mainly at existing customers)

How does it work? It's easy; email us at info@guroo.co.uk (from your work email address please) and we'll send you full joining instructions. All you need is an online computer with speakers or headphones.

You can just sit back, watch and listen - or interact and ask questions via online chat.

Is Wednesday a bad day for you? Then email us and we'll sort something out just for you!

It really is definitely, absolutely unequivocally happening

What is - Functional Skills replaces Key Skills as a mandatory component of all Apprenticeships from September 2012.

Now, it could be argued that it was already definite, and indeed it was, but some organisations (AELP, AoC and FAB amongst them) had been fighting against the change, arguing it was being implemented too quick and the qualification too rigorous. Looks like they have will have to change their tack and we hope to part of the solution that they put forward to their members.

The letter is here.