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March 12th - the Functional Skills
newsletter
This week we lead with the DfE review
into vocational qualifications and provide a link to the consultation questionnaire.
We've also picked up on another two interesting stories - one from the
schools sector about showing progression and the other from America where the
move towards problem solving in maths seems to be taking hold eventually and
of course, news about this week’s webinar on Wednesday.
As always, your comments and thoughts
are appreciated - let us know what you'd like us to cover in the newsletter
by emailing the editor - jwells@guroo.co.uk
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More on vocational qualifications
consultation
Following our report last newsletter about
schools pulling away from vocational qualifications, we've picked up a number
of other "snippets" that are closely related.
The press notice from the DfE has full details of the
exchanges which can be summarised as:
- The introduction of "high quality
courses" that are GCSE sized in Construction and Engineering for
14-16. Is it a coincidence that these were considered the successful
Diplomas?
- The Tech Bacc that has at its' core "high
quality substantive qualification".
- The differentiation between general and
occupational qualifications.
All of the areas of consultation have
Functional English and maths as a common and indeed core element. Click here for the link
to the 16-19 consultation paper.
International Functional Skills?
About two years ago, I did a lot of
research into the US market, just at about the time that many US States were
talking about adopting the "math common core standards". Now it
appears that they may actually be coming.
A Guardian report has picked up on the
change away from "disconnected skills without context or creativity"
towards problem solving or as the Americans have termed it "Constructing
viable arguments and critiquing the reasoning of others"!
How to show progress
during Ofsted observations
The references apply to schools, but
the principal works in all sectors. The new Ofsted inspection framework places
a great emphasis on the quality of teaching and learning and it makes explicit
the teaching of reading, writing, communication and mathematics in all classes.
This piece was published in Sec-Ed and it looks specifically
at how to demonstrate visible improvements during a teaching session.
Wednesday Webinar at 4.00pm
A change in the presenter this week. Jonathan
and Cathy are both attending the Apprenticeships for England conference and
exhibition in London on Wednesday so this week we have Daisy presenting:
"A quick guide to Guroo" which is aimed specifically at those new (or newly coming
back to) Guroo highlighting all the features and benefits in a twenty minute
dash around Guroo Functional Skills. As always we find that many more people
enjoy coming back for the recording afterwards, but if you'd like to be live,
just drop an email to info@guroo.co.uk
Join us on Wednesday at 4pm.
All previous webinars are recorded and
available anytime for playback - login as a guest and the password is password.
Simply click on the links below and don’t forget, if you’d like to have your
own 1:1 webinar looking at how Guroo can help you support Functional Skills,
just call us on 0191 305 5045 or email info@guroo.co.uk and we’ll take it from there.
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