Guroo Curator™

Guroo Curator™ is almost ready to launch

Guroo Curator™ is a brand new part of Guroo 4.0 due for release quite shortly and as always, immediately available free of charge to all Guroo customers with all inclusive licences.

We've called it Guroo Curator™ to reflect the effort we have applied in searching and selecting free publicly available content for presentation that we think is high quality, consistent and relevant to Functional Skills and GCSE.  We've then tagged the content to the skills criteria so they will appear in all Guroo searches and added both an explanation and rating.

With Guroo Curator™, we're making your job of finding good quality additional resources easy, as well as adding new resources linked to those parts of the Functional Skills and GCSE skills that can be hard to address using e-learning.

So here's where you come in - we can't possibly search and review everything out there, so please let me know what resources you suggest we link into Guroo Curator™.  Simply email me with a URL and a few details and we'll take it from there.

Jonathan Wells

Guroo Ltd - the UK's best provider of Functional Skills Solutions (officially)!

Funding rates for maths and English from Entry Level to Level 2.

Funding rates for maths and English from Entry Level to Level 2.

The SFA has produced a document that lists all provision for which public funding has been approved for 2014/15.  The full document is available here but for simplicity, the funding rates for popular Functional Skills and GCSE qualifications are listed below.

• £941 for Entry Level Functional Skills qualifications in maths.
• £724 for Entry Level Functional Skills qualifications in English.
• £724 for Level 1&2 Functional Skills qualifications in maths.
• £724 for Level 1&2 Functional Skills qualifications in English.
• £724 for GCSE qualifications in maths.
• £724 for GCSE qualifications in English.
• £336 for Functional Skills qualifications in ICT at all levels.
• £300 for free standing maths qualifications at Level 2.

On a separate but related subject, Ofsted are very keen to see "stretch and challenge" in programmes of study so it's crucial to ensure that a rigorous and credible initial assessment is taken by learners prior to selecting the level of course.  Guroo provides exactly that, either as a standalone test or as part of a full resource programme. 

GCSE vs Functional Skills

More on GCSE vs Functional Skills and funding!

The two biggest issues in the sector remain the question of GCSE or Functional Skills in Apprenticeships and Funding.

The Guardian recently polled half a dozen specialists in the sector for their views. Their views are very much in line with current thinking, suggesting that setting a minimum entry requirement of GCSE maths and English in Apprenticeships and changing the way the funding system works will both have very significant negative effects on Apprenticeships.

And it's not just the sector that is worried about maths and English, The Government through BIS is forming a research centre to look into the issue of adult literacy and numeracy.  This FE Week report is generally supportive, although with the research being focussed solely upon adult education, it's impact on the GCSE vs Functional Skills debate is likely to be minimal.