Which quals are the most valuable?

Written by Jonathan Wells of Guroo Functional Skills - leaders in 14-19 resources.

Of the level2 and level 3 quals good ones in terms of future earning power are A levels and 5+ GCSE including Maths and English.

Bad ones are BTEC, NVQ and C&G. Indeed even a level 3 BTEC scores less than 5+ GCSE in earning power and it's supposedly 1 level higher!

Ofqual stating the obvious

Ofqual are syaing that the Dilpoma needs to change. Of course it does, as a new qualification, it needs to be given the time and space to mature and develop.

On the functional skills side though Ms Tattersall said the demand for functional skills should remain part of the Diplomas. But her report says the functional skills tests have "some way to go before they can be regarded as fully satisfactory". Again, completely accepted.

Jonathan Wells

Guroo Functional Skills Newsletter 15/12/09

Our bi-weekly look at the world of functional skills.

New Delivering Diploma conference announced for March, a sneak look at the Guroo stand for BETT, how much do you know about Foundation Learning and the latest content bulletin from the basement in Guroo Towers.

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Delivering Diplomas Conference, March 18 @ Aston University. Our friends at sec-ed have told us the next Delivering Diploma conference will feature Iain Wright, Secretary of State for 14-19 Reform and Apprenticeships along with Teresa Bergin, Head of Diploma at QCDA. Click here for a special offer saving of 20% for "guroo friends" on the delegate fee. Please be aware it's a big file to download - we can email or post you a copy if you'd prefer just let me know at jwells@guroo.co.uk

Sneak preview of Guroo's BETT stand. the picture below is a sneak preview of our main stand backdrop for BETT, stand N48. Click on the picture to link to the latest Guroo Content Bulletin detailing all the updates, additions and changes to the Guroo service in the last few weeks.

The official line. There's been nothing from DCFS, no new videos on Teachers TV, the FSSP support section is "still under construction", even Teachernet's last update was 30th October. Still, it's good to know we can all have a few days without worrying we're missing something.

What do you know about Foundation Learning? Functional Skills is a key element of Foundation Learning at all levels. We noticed this diagram on the Excellence Gateway. We've linked it to some more key documents about Foundation Learning, some new, some old.

Jonathan's Functional Skills blog - 159 entries and counting.......

Click here for the new website for functional skills support from National Strategies and LSIS

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Safeguarding children

This has been an interesting one for us at guroo. We visit schools regularly, indeed during November, we did that more than 80 times as we show our functional skills wares around the country.

More and more we are getting asked for photo ID as we arrive on site. So much so that we've decided to produce our own ID cards with our CRB certification number and personal details.

It's all to do with the Safeguarding Children Act that became law in December. It's something that all of us in education will have to take account of.

Jonathan Wells - Managing Director of Guroo Ltd

Since when was an increase a decrease?

Lots of press outrage (well TES comment outrage) about teachers **only** getting a 1% pay rise from 2011 on top of a 2.3% payrise next year.

There's a big wide real world out there, that's a very good settlement and much much better than many. Tie it into excellent job security and I don't think that the public is going to be feeling sorry for teachers if the teaching unions call foul on this.

Jonathan Wells

Science getting the once over now

Report from Ofqual

These latest changes to secondary school science follow an Ofqual report that was critical of the way standards had fallen.

Ofqual made exam boards take immediate action after finding there was "clearly a cause for concern" in science GCSEs.

Among the criticisms of the current content, the Royal Society of Chemistry said entire exam papers contained no maths and some questions no science.

It said a new, more independent regulator with more clout was needed to prevent standards from such "dumbing down".

The assistant director of the lobby group the Campaign for Science and Engineering (Case), Dr Hilary Leevers, said: "Awarding bodies compete for custom among schools, and the schools, in turn, compete in the league tables, so there has been a driving down of standards.

We agree, we all use functional maths every day and it should be part of all curriculum. Jonathan Wells of www.guroo.info leaders in developing functional skills resources for the 14-19 curriculum.

Utter failure and still they complain

I have visited a number of young offenders places in the course of my consultancy career. I read today that just 4% of kids aged 14-19 are doing GCSE or A level. AT the same time, the people responsible for this education (LSC and the winners of their tenders) are complaining that things will get worse if Local Authorities take over responsibility.

How can they get worse - is 4% a fantastic result that can never be bettered? Of course not, kit's about time this area was shaken up to the core, it's a scandal and only ignored because we can all claim it's someone else's problem when in reality, good education and prospects will inevitably improve life prospects but bad education will ensure criminality remains an attractive option for them.

It's something I have written about before, I'll continue to write about in the furture until we recognise it as a problem that we can sttept to solve.

posted by Jonathan Wells, founder of Guroo, the UK's most successful company developing resources and content for functional skills in the 14-19 curriculum.