Making Sense of Functional Skills Newsletter Jan 24th 2012

January 24th - the Functional Skills newsletter

In this week's issue we report on some really shocking numbers concerning maths in the skills for life sector, Guroo have some fantastic January offers to celebrate the start of 2012(launched at BETT but available for everyone), we have summarised details of four key events coming up in the next few weeks and of course details about the ever-popular Wednesday Webinar series.

The numbers continue to climb.

The recently published Skills for Life Survey has some truly terrifying numbers in it.

5.1 million adults of working age (15% of the population) lack functional literacy skills which is pretty bad, but the same survey highlights that an astonishing 16.8 million aduts (that's 49%) are functionally innumerate, operating at E3 or below. Not only is this number very large; it's getting worse, as it's increased from 14.9 million in the last 8 years.

But perhaps the biggest shock is that just 21.8% of the adult working population are at level 2+ in numeracy; only 1 in 5 are considered to have met the current minimum standard.

So these figures perhaps give us a big clue as to why there is such a lot of focus on Functional Skills across all age groups as English and maths become part of the core entitlement, and the reason why new performance tables in sectors including FE and WBL will show how providers are performing at level 2 English and Maths.

Great deals on Functional Skills resources available now!

Guroo has changed the way in which it sells its Functional Skills Solutions. Now, you buy learner licences that stay with the learner for as long as they are with you.

Plus all previous and existing customers are already fully registered so there is no set-up fee and no minimum subscription period - all you do is buy the appropriate number of student and tutor licences and that's it - full access to a massive range of teaching and learning resources plus the only Initial Assessment and Diagnostic system developed and written specifically for Functional Skills.

New customers can take advantage of a half price January establishment fee so get your skates on and act quickly. As an example,

• A typical secondary school who has been a previous subscriber supporting their bottom two sets can pay as little as £450
• A training provider with 150 apprentices and a few tutors would pay just £4.95 per person for full access to everything in Guroo
  
• A large college using the 5 minute levelling tool plus on-line diagnostic tests in all three subjects can do so for less than £1 a student

Call or email us now on 0191 305 5045 to place your order, have a chat about what you need or to book a free on-line demo with our friendly and expert support team.

Functional Skills related events coming up in the next few weeks

The Learning Technologies and Learning Skills conference and exhibition is on at Olympia, London this week - Wednesday and Thursday. Expect a big focus on SfL related developments and funding across all age ranges.

Sector Training are running Managing Functional Skills a residential conference on 5/6 March in Stratford Upon Avon. A varied agenda that includes the practical aspects of delivery and some great speakers from EDI, Guroo, Virgin, Ofsted and leading FE colleges.

Making Apprenticeships Work is scheduled for Wednesday 7th March in London. Three key themes are:

• IAG and post 16 options
• Employer engagement
• Standards, structure and quality

Initial and Diagnostic Tools for Functional Skills is the name of an open event at Staffs Univiersity on Monday 27th February. Contact Tina Richardson for more details about this event which will feature all the main suppliers including Guroo, BKSB and Forskills.

Do you have an event that includes Functional Skills? Let us know and we'll include your details here.

The Functional Skills Wednesday Webinar

We can't do a live one this week I'm afraid. And judging by the amazing response of previous weeks that will be a disappointment for many. Jonathan and Stewart are in London presenting at the Learning and Skills show, so this week it's impossible to run the webinar.

But don't despair we'll be back on Wednesday 1st February at 4.05 when Jonathan will be presenting a "Functional Skills Policy and Market Perspective" his personal view of the current state of the nation as related to Functional Skills.

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Replay last week's webinar at the link below. Simply enter your name and use guroo as the password.

Introduction to Guroo 2.1

What's new at BETT

Awarding organisations:

There is a distinct lack of Edexcel branding - it's all Pearson. Maybe after all the problems, the Edexcel brand is being hidden a little for a while?

OCR are pushing their Cambridge Nationals brand a lot - maybe this is a sign that the opposite is happening, OCR see the issues as a real opportunity.

Maths products are big. There are many stands - the original Mathletics and Maths Whizz are being joined by around a dozen more. It shows how important the market sees Maths in the next couple of years.

3D remains big, not just from the big screen point of view, but now little elegant solutions coming out such as units that sit on front of projectors and polarise the picture allowing easy conversion. But like so many things before hand is 3D just a solution looking for a problem in education?

Games, not so big I think. Unlike Mr Gove's wish that computer games teach historical facts, I don't think this is going to happen, games are games and it's unlikely that a massive game based on history will supplant Dogs of War (or whatever it's called) as the number one seller.

Whiteboards, PC's I think very much of a muchness. Yes they are nice and big and clever with short throw projectors but so what. They are just tools after all. As are the expensive and digital signage systems based on big screens.

Content looks quite good though. Twig won the secondary award for content based around Sciece, Espresso continue to innovate in primary and of course companies like Guroo innovate in specific areas such as Functional SKills.

Also I noticed lots of China/Korea companies, often with screen based technologies. And I do mean a lot of them.

So that's the last year at Olympia - will docklands be better or worse - who knows?

Jonathan

BETT during build up

Ever wondered what it's like before a major exhibition?

This was about 2pm on Tuesday, compare it with 10am Wednesday and what a transformation!

BETT 2012 Guroo Stands S67 and V28

BETT 2012

Just a quick blog update for readers to let you know about Functional Skills at BETT 2012.

So the biggest companies operating at BETT are Guroo on stands S67 and V28 - Guroo offer a complete Functional Skills solution, written especially for Functional Skills (no Key Skills adapted work here). Two very nice 3sq m stands in seperate halls staffed by people who really do know their Functional Skills inside out! Initial Assessment and Diagnostic, reports, teaching and learning resources, and learner led pricing models are all part of the market leading package for Functional Skills from Guroo.

BKSB ignored me as usual and wouldn't come over to speak about Functional Skills. Their stand is a big 36 sqm affair populated with lots of comfy chairs but the BKSB live product that has been promised for the last year doesn't seem to be there according to visitors who came to see both Guroo and them. And with a fully built up stand at BETT costing something towards £1000 per sq m, that seems like an awful lot of cost to recover from sales.

Other companies, well Nelson Thornes have a poster, Edexcel have some stuff, the lovely people from CIA Training are here with ICT solutions, Promethean have Functional Skills solutions on their Planet content system,and the AOs all have lots of teaching resources for their particular brand of assessment. So more than last year, but the market leaders are well established now.

Visitor numbers - better than we expected but with the market still quite quiet, we weren't expecting a great day. A satisfactory day is probably the best way to describe it all.

All the best - Jonathan

Making Sense of Functional Skills Newsletter Jan 10th

January 10th - the Functional Skills newsletter

Welcome to the first Making Sense of Functional Skills Newsletter of 2012. We plan to publish every two weeks during term time on a Tuesday morning.

In this issue we have news of policy announcements concerning participation in Education for 16-24 year olds, comments on 16-19 of funding, what's happening at BETT 2012 this week, plus more about the increasingly popular Wednesday Webinar which this week will be broadcast live from BETT.

Please Plus One us on Google follow us on Twitter @guroofs and like us on Facebook at guroo.functionalskills. The next newsletter is likely to be Tuesday January 24th - if you have anything you'd like us to know about, just get in touch jwells@guroo.co.uk

English and maths take a very high priority in "Building Engagement, Building Futures" This document was published very recently and sets out Government plans on reducing NEETs. The document essentially collects together all the policy announcements about Raising Participation Age, Apprenticeships, the continuing review of vocational education started by Professor Wolf, and associated funding mechanisms to support these plans. So nothing particularly new; but hidden away in paragraph 3.12 we noticed this comment: "We will make it a condition of funding that training providers should seek to support all learners who have not achieved Level 2 in English and maths to reach that standard, with performance data on results being published." That's the first time we've seen the mention of performance tables with private training providers and it re-enforces the view that all 16-19 (and possibly 19-24 year olds) will be expected to continue learning English and maths until they have achieved at least Level 2. The full document is here. Comments in 16-19 Funding Proposals Courtesy of fenews.co.uk we noticed this piece by Jan Hodges, the chief executive of Edge which promotes vocational education. It's a short, concise view of changes in the 16-19 funding picture and we particualrly like Jan's support for Functional Skills. "However, is it right to put so much emphasis on GCSEs? On the one hand, employers are looking for good communication and number skills, not necessarily a grade C GCSE. And on the other, results often go down if young people are forced to keep re-sitting the same old GCSEs, term after term. I would feel much happier if needs could be met by embedding maths and English into other subjects, and by building on existing Functional Skills qualifications." The YPLA funding statement is here. Jan's article is here in full. Join us at BETT 2012 BETT 2012 is at Olympia this week (11-14 January) with some 600 exhibitors and 30,000 visitors expected. The focus is on using technology to empower education, but you don't need to be an ICT specialist to get something from a visit to BETT. There's plenty to keep the technologists happy, but equally, you'll find exhibitors like Guroo who are using technology as a means to an end, with the focus on solutions, delivering teaching and learning, and reducing the cost of delivery. If you're at BETT, please drop in to our main stand (V28) where we will be showing the latest developments, including Initial Assessment and Diagnostics for ICT (English and maths are already released), new user admin and reporting options, and the latest additions to our teaching and learning resources. If you're looking for any type of Functional Skills solution, you'll be able to compare Guroo with the rest of the market plus Guroo have some fantastic new year deals on Functional Skills solutions, and they're not just available for BETT visitors, everyone placing an order in January can expect a great deal! The Functional Skills Wednesday Webinar We've had an amazing response to this programme over the last few weeks of 2011, so we will make it a regular feature this year, with a live webinar running every Wednesday at 4.05, with all sessions recorded for easy access afterwards. Have you got something to say about Functional Skills? We'd love to have you as a guest speaker - get in touch please! Wednesday 11th January the webinar will be broadcast live from BETT featuring a review of all things Functional Skills at the show. Join this webinar at https://onsync.digitalsamba.com/go/guroosh/lands Password = guroo Wednesday 18th January we'll be covering all the latest Guroo 2.1 developments. Join this webinar at https://onsync.digitalsamba.com/go/guroosh/fsnews Password = guroo Wednesday 25th Janaury will feature another live broadcast from the Learning and Skills show in London. Join this webinar at https://onsync.digitalsamba.com/go/guroosh/lands Password = guroo How does it work? It's easy; Follow the links above and log in with your choice of name and the supplied password. 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. Replay previous webinars at the links below. Simply enter your name and use guroo as the password. Functional Skills Policy Review Initial Assessment and Diagnostic Functional Skills Teaching and Learning Resources

The Commercial Reality of BETT

There has been some discussion on blogs and twitter recently - especially at www.susanbanister.com about BETT and the apparent conflict between educationalists and companies.

My company is a small company, nevertheless, we've invested more than half a million pounds over the last 5 years in developing on-line solutions that our customers (schools, colleges, training providers and indeed individuals).

BETT is an important event to bring together buyers and sellers, without shows like BETT, we'd spend even more money trying to reach our potential customers on a one to one basis. But BETT is also a significant cost - did you know that the charge just for internet over 4 days is just short of £1000 - yes ONE THOUSAND and unless we see enough potential customers, we won't go.

So educationalists need to keep attending BETT to make it worthwhile for companies, companies need to keep going to make it worthwhile for educationalists, we just have to be careful that organisers don't try to soak both sets of people for as much money as they can get - that's the biggest danger that I see.

Preparing for BETT

Asis always the case at the beginning of January, I will be at the BETT show again this year from12-15th with the Guroo team.

On Wednesday at 4.05pm I'll be doing a live webinar from the show focussed naturally on Functional Skills and what can be seen on all the different stands.

So if you work for a company with Functional Skills resources and are at BETT, get in touch.