16 to 19 funding for maths and English

Key changes from previous guidance are:

Where targets for 2014/15 were missed by less than 5%, no funding deduction will be made. Outside of this 5% tolerance, the funding reduction per student will be reduced from 100% to 50% of the national funding rate.

The Government have said that 97% of students without GCSE A*-C did an approved course (typically either Functional Skills or GCSE re-sit) in 2014/15 which means that 35,000 students did not.  Institutions who did not fully comply will also be required to complete a survey to say why and what they are doing to ensure it doesn't happen again.

Almost all Apprenticeship programmes retain Functional Skills as an option, as does adult learning courses.  The full guidance is here.

Can it be 8 years since I wrote this

"Make them important"  -an article from August 2007 by Jonathan Wells

"One of the key reasons why Key Skills is a cinderella subject at college is that students, staff and employers don't see them as important. Students don't need to do Key Skills, nor pass them (MA excepted). A level students at school don't even do them.

With Functional Skills we all have the opportunity to make them important. So let's make sure that EVERY student understands them, EVERY employer knows what they are and ALL college staff know why they are important.

If it was me I would treat Functional Skills like a brand new consumer brand and go about marketing it in the same way - viral marketing, product launch, recognition adverts, supermarket sampling, free trials, simple marketing messages."

Have things changed that much?

Newsletter out today

This week's packed newsletter is being delivered at a different time - an experiment on our part.

This week we have a summary of the Government and Employers Skills Agenda and news of a recent OECD report into the use of technology in schools which makes for very interesting reading, not so much for what it says, but for it doesn't!

A reminder than the 2015 survey is running and your valuable input is sought plus ForSkills is recruiting for a Customer Engagement Officer with a salary guide of £30-40K - watch the video for more details.https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DUndgahy9OY

As always, feel free to contact Jonathan Wells, the editor of this newsletter on 0191 3055045 or jonathan@forskills.co.uk 

Job anyone?

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DUndgahy9OY

Watch and apply!

Customer Engagement Officer.

Paper based screeners - absolutely brilliant value

Brand new and amazing value paper based ForSkills and Guroo Screeners – Full colour, 4 page A4 paper based screener for maths, English and ICT designed to produce an accurate level in just 10 minutes. Our bulk buying means we can ship from stock, and with prices lower than it would cost you to print in-house.  

events coming up.

EVENTS

A quick summary of some key sector events planned over the next few weeks:

Wednesday 23rd Sept - Capita Apprenticeships and Traineeships Conference in London

Friday 2nd October - GW Partnership Skills for Life event at Wooton-under-Edge, Glos.

Thursday 15th October - AELP Special Interest group Functional Skills in London

Tuesday 20th October - AELP national conference in Coventry

Tuesday 17th November - AOC Annual Conference in Birmingham

Survey results - early findings

With almost 100 completed responses already, early results are promising. More than 70% of you value this newsletter and as a good or excellent source of news which is very gratifying. More importantly early results from the survey also show:

• More than 50% of you think that mandatory GCSE re-sits are a “terrible idea”, whereas 65% think schools should offer Functional Skills from year 10 for learners with vocational ambitions.
• A surprising 90% are confident that Functional Skills level 2 is a rigorous qualification, only 70% think the same about GCSE. Almost 60% report that learners enjoy Functional Skills, the equivalent GCSE number is 40%.
• NCFE will be pleased that the top requests for additional services from Awarding Organisations are “free initial assessment and diagnostic tools” and “faster results turnaround”.

Some great quotes too:

• “I am seeing more and more 16-19 year olds who can ‘perform’ maths skills but cannot apply them to everyday situations – how is this preparing them for working life?”
• “Expecting the FE to upgrade students to at least a C in one year of teaching (when schools have not succeeded in 5) is creating lots of barriers to learning”
• “The choice of Functional Skills or GCSE should be appropriate for the learner, not dictated by funding”
• “Recent Government changes to grade boundaries at GCSE have made the qualification worthless to employers”
• “End this GCSE re-sit madness – it’s destroying the confidence of students”

The link is here https://www.surveymonkey.com/r/mathsandenglish2015 please take 10 minutes and add your thoughts and opinions - they do count and they are important.

Please complete the 5th annual survey for post-16 English and maths

It's that time of year again - time to have your say about English and maths in the 5th annual survey about FunctionalSkills and GCSE.

The survey covers familiar ground and we've timed it at 10-15 minutes - only the first 5 demographic and 1 question at the end are "must complete", the rest of the 20 questions are all optional and cover areas such as:

• Qualification routes
• Awarding organisations
• Confidence in Functional Skills and GCSE
• E-Portfolio use
• Initial assessment, diagnostics and resource providers
• Confidence and future thoughts

As usual, we're offering to make a charity donation for each completed survey and one lucky respondent will win a fully stocked picnic hamper to share with colleagues as a thank you and indeed incentive for taking part.

This is the 5th annual survey, in the past we've had well over 1000 responses and we know that the results inform and influence policy makers and have certainly contributed to decisions in the sector.  

The link is here https://www.surveymonkey.com/r/mathsandenglish2015https://www.surveymonkey.com/r/mathsandenglish2015 please take 10 minutes and add your thoughts and opinions - they do count and they are important.

September 2nd newseltter - e-learning report and 2015 survey

The newsletter returns after a few weeks off and with so much going on, we expect to send an update every week during September.

This week we focus on the launch of the 2015 survey, a chance to see Jonathan Wells (the newsletter editor) in action on live TV and a reminder for everyone in the sector about this report - independent evidence that just 15 hours of e-learning use results in an AVERAGE improvement in success of 9%. See below to request your copy of the report.

Plus did you know that many of the high quality ForSkills and Guroo skills videos are now available free of charge via ad-supported content on YouTube.  Subscribe to the ForSkills channel here and you'll always have the latest. 

As always, feel free to contact Jonathan Wells, the editor of this newsletter on 0191 3055045 or jonathan@forskills.co.uk