Making Sense of Functional Skills Newsletter Oct 16th

October 16th - the Functional Skills newsletter

Functional Skills use has really take off in the past couple of weeks.  The Guroo guys recorded a massive increase in usage.  Just last week, nearly 5000 new learners logged onto Guroo for the first time and the market is seeing new entrants all the time.  This week we report on the Virtual College e-Apprenticeship offer.

There’s lots of talk around funding and we know that the SFA are looking at Functional Skills funding, so a great time to summarise basic funding rates across all sectors. 

We’ve also got news of which exam boards are chosen by you, the result’s may very well surprise you given that there are now 16 exam boards offering the Functional Skills qualification.  They also make pleasant reading for the exam boards with high levels of customer satisfaction.

And finally we have news of this week’s webinar which will go ahead on Wednesday at 4.00pm – how to get the best from a Guroo Free Trial.  Very relevant given that the Guroo guys are reporting up to 5 new registrations per day, plus we have links to previous webinar recordings too.

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

ITE Grant and Functional Skills funding rates across sectors

A quick reminder that a fee award of £1,500 is available for up to 1,000 applicants training as subject specialists to teach English and maths (including Functional Skills). 

Click here for the link to the document on the excellence gateway.

2012/13 funding rates for Functional Skills depends on the sector, the age of the learner, the type of learning undertaken and the subject with additional variations for location and demographics of intake. To complicate matters further, rates for FE Colleges are unlisted for 2012/13 so can only be quoted as the glh equivalent and 19+ Apprenticeships have 12.5% of co-funding.  Nevertheless, the table below shows the basic rates but is it important to check with your funding agency your precise formula and rate.

As I understand it, what the table does show is that learners who achieve level 1 in an Apprenticeship who then go onto Level 2 through choice are funded at the higher workplace standalone qualification rate.

Type of delivery	Age	Value	Notes
Workplace	Any	£314	Standalone qual
Workplace	16-18 Apprenticeship	£224
Workplace	19-24 Apprenticeship	£183
Workplace	25+ Apprenticeship	£146
Classroom	16-18 School	£327
Classroom	16-18 College	£9.08 per glh	Unlisted qual
Classroom	19+ College	£5.81 per glh	Unlisted qual

Massive upturn in Functional Skills take-up

Functional Skills and GCSE are the ONLY funded and accredited qualifications for Maths and English to Level 2.  The last few weeks has seen a massive increase in the use of resources to support Functional Skills, including a new service from the Virtual College.

This combines the best pre-apprenticeship recruitment solution with on-line apprenticeship resources combined with Guroo’s Functional Skills resources and optional technical certificates mapped to the QCF.

The Apprenticeship eAcademy run by Virtual College includes:

1. Pre-apprenticeship & Recruitment – Including learner profiling, with specific aptitude tests for Business Administration, Health and Social Care and Customer Service. These resources can halve recruitment time and costs, but also add value to the employers you work with and build your brand awareness.
2. Functional Skills – A complete solution powered by Guroo Functional Skills. Initial assessment and full diagnostics, teaching and learning resources and a system that provides a series of profiles showing learner progression in Maths, English and ICT.
3. Foundation Level – 6 courses including: Apprentice Induction, Learner Charter Equality and Diversity, Personal Learning and Thinking Skills (Including initial self-assessment), Employee Rights and Responsibilities and Introduction to Health and Safety.
4. Technical Certificates – Content mapped to the QCF to support technical certificates in Business Administration, Health and Social Care, Customer Service and Manufacturing frameworks and then mapped to your awarding body.

Find out more here.

Which exam board?

As part of the annual Functional Skills survey, one of the questions we asked was about which exam board was used. From the 197 completed responses, only three companies achieved more than 5% responses.

The two biggest were Pearson and City&Guilds each with 35% market share of the respondents, OCR were third at 15% with "all the rest" making up the other 15%.

The research also shows that customer perception of the exam boards is very positive with 84% either very happy or quite happy with their choice and this almost certainly shows that the innovation shown by the exam boards is delivering a very good customer experience.  

Wednesday Webinar at 4.00pm

This week’s webinar is entitled "Getting the best from the Guroo free trial".  Every day we get up to 5 new registrations to use the Guroo Free Trial system so we thought it would be great idea to do a snappy webinar as a guide to getting the best from your free trial, presented by Jonathan Wells. 

Email info@guroo.co.uk for joining instructions and then join Jonathan on Wednesday at 4.00pm  

Previous webinars are recorded and available anytime for playback.  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.

The differences between Key Skills/SfL and Functional Skills

What you really have to know about Functional Skills for Senior Managers

Functional Skills in the Revised Common Inspection Framework

Guroo group and user admin  

Functional Skills Newsletter Oct 2nd

October 2nd - the Functional Skills newsletter

This week we have news on Functional Skills within the Revised CIF and we think this is  important that we've also developed this week's Wednesday Webinar around the subject - tomorrow's is entitled "Functional Skills in the Revised Common Inspection Framework ".  We acknowledge David Sykes of the The Skills Network who wrote the original presentation and gave us permission to adapt it to a 20 minute webinar format.

We have a link to a good blog from Roger Francis who argues the case strongly for Functional Skills and now that Key Skills and SfL are definitely RIP, a summary of the Guroo offer for Functional Skills including details of how to access the free trial.

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

Revised Common Inspection Framework

With thanks to David Sykes of The Skills Network

English and maths and therefore Functional Skills feature heavily in the Revised CIF.  Key differences include:

• Greater emphasis on teaching, learning and assessment
• Development of English/maths and employability skills
• Increased observation of teaching, learning, skills development and assessment
• A bigger focus on learner progress relative to start point and goals including rates of progress and the progression of different groups of learners, less focus on outcomes
• Progression to destinations including higher levels of study and employment
• More use of tracking the learner journey, evaluating learning materials and technology and what learners can do
  
  

Tomorrow's Wednesday Webinar at 4.00pm will focus on the Revised CIF with more detail around the above points.  email info@guroo.co.uk to get joining details.

So why do Functional Skills, anyway?

A really interesting blog post by Roger Francis who poses the above question and then does a very good job in answering it!

Click here to read the article.

RIP Key Skills and SfL.

You can no longer register learners for Key Skills and SfL in any funded programme.  The only funded qualifications for English and maths are now Functional Skills and GCSE.

Just a quick reminder of the services that Guroo does provide for Functional Skills.

Guroo is a company that is dedicated solely to Functional Skills.  It is very easy to become a customer and get your SITE CODE and this costs as little as £325.  Once you are a customer, you get access to the pdf version of the Functional Skills Level Checker and then you can add any number of user licences to use the on-line initial assessment, diagnostic and teaching & learning resources.  We have on-line and paper based products covering the full learner journey. 

A Paper Based Functional Skills Level Checker for Maths and English developed by Guroo and ideal for use as part of a pre-course assessment or interview process – takes about 10 minutes to do, and produces a good guide to the level that the learner is currently operating at.

An on-line Initial Assessment producing a detailed Functional Skills Diagnostic.  Takes around 50 minutes per subject (we do all three subjects) and is completed on-line and automatically marked.  The diagnostic details performance against the Functional Skills criteria in all subjects.  The test is adaptive with learners starting at E3 then adapting according to performance and has randomisation and variability built in so the assessment can be done several times without learners becoming good at the test rather than the skills.

Try if for FREE here.

A massive bank of teaching and learning resources.  Mainly on-line interactive and based around 130 “challenges” each with several learning tasks.  The tasks can also be downloaded as pdf’s for printing and use off line and again cover all levels and all three subjects.

Customers pay an establishment fee which is a on-off fee.  You then buy licences based on number of users or tests according to what you need.  It is not an annual subscription, use stays as long as your learner or tutor is with you. Establishment fees start as low as £325 and indeed, customers who only wish to use the Paper Based Functional Skills Level Checker pay just £325 for the licence providing they choose to print the test papers out themselves.

Guroo customers get access to the Level Checker free of charge if they wish to print out the tests themselves or can buy sets of tests in bulk for ease of use and indeed to save money, as our sets often cost less than printing yourself!  We’re also producing an automatically marked on-line version too, again access is limited to licenced customers.  Prices for the on-line test are 50p per set (Maths and English), the paper based version can be supplied in a 100 pack for £75 which contains 100 x English, 100 x Maths and marking/guidance notes for each subject.  A 250 pack is just £150, almost certainly than printing in house.

Contact info@guroo.co.uk for anything to do with Functional Skills.

Wednesday Webinar at 4.00pm

Access last fortnight's recording on "Key Differences between Functional Skills and Key Skills" here. 

This weeks webinar is entitled "Functional Skills in the Revised CIF" and is a more detailed look at the changes to CIF than the main points above and how they affect English and maths Functional Skills. 

Please email info@guroo.co.uk for joining instructions.

Today's the day .....

5 Years after Functional Skills was launched in pilot form, today is the day that Functional Skills finally and irrevocably replaces Key Skills and SfL in all teaching and learning programmes.
A small cheer I think!
Jonathan Wells of Guroo Functional Skills.

Today on Twitter

Student quote: "School should teach us functional skills, not about pi."

GCSE shake-up

What about Functional Skills, do they have a place?

YES THEY DO

Whilst all the talk is about the GCSE shake-up, Michael Gove yesterday in Parliament also added that "something else" would be available for those students at school, who were unlikely to succeed in the new exams.

Add this to the requirement for Functional Skills in Apprentices which starts this month and we can conclude that Functional Skills plus the new Bacc type qualifications will be the way forward.

Functional Skills Newsletter Sept 18th

September 18th - the Functional Skills newsletter

This week we have news on the return of the Wednesday Webinar - tomorrow's is entitled ""The key differences between SfL/KS and Functional Skills". 

We have advance news on the Functional Skills survey with some incredibly positive results about the rigour and indeed enjoyment of teaching and learning Functional Skills.

We've pulled together some of the stories that we think you'll find interesting about Functional Skills, although it has to be said that most news this week is GCSE related and we've got the Guroo guys to summarise their offer and commit to a 24 hour turnaround on getting customers ready to deliver Functional Skills.

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

"Rigorous" Functional Skills likely to be the winner in GCSE shape-up. Research to be published shortly will show that practitioners believe that Functional Skills are 78% more challenging that KS/SfL. And showing astonishing high levels of confidence in Functional Skills, the research also shows that 85% say that Functional Skills is a better qualification.  Further that nearly 2/3rds of learners enjoy Functional Skills and more than 4 in 5 practitioners have confidence in delivering Functional Skills and an almost unbelievable 75% of teachers/tutors are looking forward to the change to Functional Skills! That means we have a rigorous qualification that teachers and tutors both want to teach and are confident of delivering and that learners like doing.  So whilst all the talk around the exams shake-up is about GCSE, it seems likely that Functional Skills will feature heavily as the changes take place in the next 2-3 years.

Wednesday Webinars are back!

We'll be holding a webinar every Wednesday after the newsletter is published so the first one this term is Wednesday 19th September at 4.05pm

This weeks topic will be presented by Jonathan Wells and is entitled "The key differences between SfL/KS and Functional Skills"

To join simply email info@guroo.co.uk and we'll send you the link on Wednesday afternoon - Guroo Wednesday Webinars are free to join but are limited to the first 50 joiners.

Functional Skills in the news Graham Hasting-Evans of NOCN discusses Functional Skills in FE Week. More nails in the GCSE coffin in HR magazine. Updated list of AO offering Functional Skills courtesy of Great Learning. AELP workshop on Functional Skills in Apprenticeships. Functional Skills survey - your response is greatly appreciated.

Ready for "FS day"? It takes just one day to get set-up and ready using Guroo Functional Skills Resources

Just a quick reminder of the services that Guroo does provide for Functional Skills.

Guroo is a company that is dedicated solely to Functional Skills.  It is very easy to become a customer and get your SITE CODE and this costs as little as £325.  Once you are a customer, you get access to the pdf version of the Functional Skills Level Checker and then you can add any number of user licences to use the on-line initial assessment, diagnostic and teaching & learning resources.  We have on-line and paper based products covering the full learner journey. 

A Paper Based Functional Skills Level Checker for Maths and English developed by Guroo and ideal for use as part of a pre-course assessment or interview process – takes about 10 minutes to do, and produces a good guide to the level that the learner is currently operating at.

An on-line Initial Assessment producing a detailed Functional Skills Diagnostic.  Takes around 50 minutes per subject (we do all three subjects) and is completed on-line and automatically marked.  The diagnostic details performance against the Functional Skills criteria in all subjects.  The test is adaptive with learners starting at E3 then adapting according to performance and has randomisation and variability built in so the assessment can be done several times without learners becoming good at the test rather than the skills.

Try if for FREE here.

A massive bank of teaching and learning resources.  Mainly on-line interactive and based around 130 “challenges” each with several learning tasks.  The tasks can also be downloaded as pdf’s for printing and use off line and again cover all levels and all three subjects.

Customers pay an establishment fee which is a on-off fee.  You then buy licences based on number of users or tests according to what you need.  It is not an annual subscription, use stays as long as your learner or tutor is with you. Establishment fees start as low as £325 and indeed, customers who only wish to use the Paper Based Functional Skills Level Checker pay just £325 for the licence providing they choose to print the test papers out themselves.

Guroo customers get access to the Level Checker free of charge if they wish to print out the tests themselves or can buy sets of tests in bulk for ease of use and indeed to save money, as our sets often cost less than printing yourself!  We’re also producing an automatically marked on-line version too, again access is limited to licenced customers.  Prices for the on-line test are 50p per set (Maths and English), the paper based version can be supplied in a 100 pack for £75 which contains 100 x English, 100 x Maths and marking/guidance notes for each subject.  A 250 pack is just £150, almost certainly than printing in house.

Contact info@guroo.co.uk for anything to do with Functional Skills.

Functional Skills Annual Survey Report for 2012 Please take part in this year's survey by clicking here It will take you around 10-15 minutes.  The results we get are used widely in the sector plus this year, we are being supported by OCR, Pearson and EMSkills who have all kindly sponsored key survey questions.  Even better, we've using the sponsorship funds to support some of our favourite charities, simply make your choice at the end of the survey! The summary report is scheduled for publication in September, please email jwells@guroo.co.uk if you have any questions at all.

Making Sense of Functional Skills Newsletter Sept 4th

September 4th - the Functional Skills newsletter

With less than a month until "FS DAY", a quick reminder in this week's newsletter about some of the services that Guroo provides, with establishment licences starting from as little as £325 and user licences from £1.50 per user.  

Plus news from AELP including practitioner workshops and details of September's Special Interest Group meeting for Functional Skills. 

Plus the launch of the Paper Based Functional Skills Level Checker - available ABSOLUTELY FREE to licenced Guroo customers and a reminder to complete the annual Functional Skills Survey - adding to the nearly 200 responses we've already had!

Paper Based Functional Skills Level Checker

A reminder that licenced Guroo customers can now access this new paper based level checker.  It is NOT available on the web site, please email us at info@guroo.co.uk and we'll send you a pdf version for immediate use.

If you aren't yet a customer of Guroo, but keen to use the Level Checker, there are special licences available starting at £325 - click here to get to the latest price lists and products.

Guroo also has limited stocks of full colour printed test papers for licenced customers.  A 100 pack with 100 x English, 100 x Maths plus laminated guidance/marking notes for both tests costs just £75 - probably cheaper than printing everything yourself.  A 250 pack is even better value at £150.

Guroo Functional Skills Resources

Just a quick reminder of the services that Guroo does provide for Functional Skills.

Guroo is a company that is dedicated solely to Functional Skills.  It is very easy to become a customer and get your SITE CODE and this costs as little as £325.  Once you are a customer, you get access to the pdf version of the Functional Skills Level Checker and then you can add any number of user licences to use the on-line initial assessment, diagnostic and teaching & learning resources.  We have on-line and paper based products covering the full learner journey. 

A Paper Based Functional Skills Level Checker for Maths and English developed by Guroo and ideal for use as part of a pre-course assessment or interview process – takes about 10 minutes to do, and produces a good guide to the level that the learner is currently operating at.

An on-line Initial Assessment producing a detailed Functional Skills Diagnostic.  Takes around 50 minutes per subject (we do all three subjects) and is completed on-line and automatically marked.  The diagnostic details performance against the Functional Skills criteria in all subjects.  The test is adaptive with learners starting at E3 then adapting according to performance and has randomisation and variability built in so the assessment can be done several times without learners becoming good at the test rather than the skills.

Try if for FREE here.

A massive bank of teaching and learning resources.  Mainly on-line interactive and based around 130 “challenges” each with several learning tasks.  The tasks can also be downloaded as pdf’s for printing and use off line and again cover all levels and all three subjects.

Customers pay an establishment fee which is a on-off fee.  You then buy licences based on number of users or tests according to what you need.  It is not an annual subscription, use stays as long as your learner or tutor is with you. Establishment fees start as low as £325 and indeed, customers who only wish to use the Paper Based Functional Skills Level Checker pay just £325 for the licence providing they choose to print the test papers out themselves.

Guroo customers get access to the Level Checker free of charge if they wish to print out the tests themselves or can buy sets of tests in bulk for ease of use and indeed to save money, as our sets often cost less than printing yourself!  We’re also producing an automatically marked on-line version too, again access is limited to licenced customers.  Prices for the on-line test are 50p per set (Maths and English), the paper based version can be supplied in a 100 pack for £75 which contains 100 x English, 100 x Maths and marking/guidance notes for each subject.  A 250 pack is just £150, almost certainly than printing in house.

Contact info@guroo.co.uk for anything to do with Functional Skills.

Functional Skills Annual Survey Report for 2012

Please take part in this year's survey by clicking here

It will take you around 10-15 minutes.  The results we get are used widely in the sector plus this year, we are being supported by OCR, Pearson and EMSkills who have all kindly sponsored key survey questions. 

Even better, we've using the sponsorship funds to support some of our favourite charities, simply make your choice at the end of the survey!

The summary report is scheduled for publication in September, please email jwells@guroo.co.uk if you have any questions at all.  

Delivering Functional Skills - managing the learner journey, a practitioner's guidance workshop Two new events organised by AELP on Monday 24th Sept in Leeds and on Thursday 4th October in Birmingham.  These half-day workshops are led by experienced facilitators drawing on best practice methods of delivering Functional Skills in Apprenticeship programmes.  They are aimed at practitioners from all sectors. Click here to go straight to the AELP page for full details and bookings. AELP members should also be aware that the Functional Skills Special Interest Group meeting will take place on Tuesday 25th Sept in London.  A packed agenda covering initial assessment, diagnostic, inspections and final assessment will be chaired by Roger Francis of Mindleaders.  To attend contact events@aelp.org.uk