December 6th - the Functional Skills newsletter
In this issue, we focus on analysing a number of Government policy announcements and consultation papers in the last couple of weeks, plus links to speeches from John Hayes and Vince Cable, relevant press news, and this week's Wednesday Webinar which looks at Functional Skills Policy; very relevant after all the recent announcements.
The Government publish FE and Skills reform plan.
A readable and relatively compact document that is subtitled "Building a World Class Skills System". It looks at 10 areas of reform:
- Students at the heart of the system
- A national careers service from April 2012
- A ladder of opportunity with clear progression
- Excellence in teaching and learning
- A review of learning programmes and qualifications
- Opening up post 14 learners to the FE sector
- Freedom from central control and bureaucratic burdens
- Simplified funding system focused on high quality provision
- Moving empowerment for quality assurance away from Government to the student
- Addressing the global FE market
In relation to Functional Skills, the report is unabiguously clear, with a key action to: "Confirm that, from the 2012/13 academic year, all Apprenticeship providers will be required to support Apprentices in progressing towards the achievement of Level 2 English and Maths. From October 2012 all Apprentices starting English and Maths courses will be taking Functional Skills or GCSE qualifications."
Another thing that comes through powerfully is the Government's use of the words 'English' and 'Maths'. Indeed the first key action on the list is to re-establish those terms!
Review of research and evaluation on improving adult literacy and numeracy skills - BIS
This document was published by BIS on 1st December and runs to more than 200 pages.
Findings about ALN were mixed with the evidence indicating:
- good evidence was found on adult basic skills levels, teaching and learning, and personal, social and economic returns
- limited evidence was found on skills acquisition, retention and loss, and on adults’ everyday practices in literacy and numeracy, including patterns of self-study
- little evidence was found on the cost-effectiveness of ALN programmes, either as a whole or of specific delivery models and methods
- the evidence of the impact of ALN on productivity was found to be very weak; it is stronger but far from robust on further learning, and on employment and wages
- there is a lack of good evidence on information and communications technology (ICT), and on the role and impact of ICT in blended learning provision.
Looking forward to the literacy and numeracy skills that are needed shows how changes to SfL are likely to happen:
- There is growing evidence of the need amongst employees for a more complex combination of skills than in the past, including a combination of ICT and mathematical literacies. Individuals in employment who struggle with skills in ICT or literacy or numeracy are likely to suffer losses in the other two areas. The growing range of demands and contexts for reading and writing, and for using and manipulating numeric data, is further evidence in favour of a focus on functional skills.
- Employers frequently cite the need for (improved) reading, writing and maths skills in the workplace, and report a significant gap between the skills levels of employees and skills needs in the workplace. However, there is much less evidence on employees’ perceptions, and there is scope for the use of more refined assessment instruments to determine the skills that employers need.
More ministerial speeches
At the AoC conference a couple of weeks ago, John Hayes and Vince Cable both made speeches that pre-announced some of the headlines in the policy documents above.
For the record, here are the links:
Press Reports
Press reports continue to carry unfavourable reports about the levels of Literacy and Numeracy amongst young people. In the latest one from The Telepgraph, the focus is on Morrisions supermarket who also hit the news a few weeks ago with 12 week apprrenticeship programmes. Click here for the full story.
Youth Contract
Wednesday Webinar from Guroo
Our programme of twenty-minute Wednesday Webinar events is going down really well - and it continues tomorrow with a different presenter.
Previous events have covered:
- Initial Assesment and Diagnostic
- Cross Curriculum resources
- Teaching and Learning resources
- Guroo 2.1 admin and reporting
We have recorded video versions of most of them - email us if you'd like the link to replay the webinars.
The schedule moving forward is:
Wednesday 7th at 4.05pm - Functional Skills Policy Review with Jonathan Wells of Guroo
Wednesday 14th at 4.05 - Functional Skills Initial Assessment and Diagnostic with Stewart Hutton
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.
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