BETT Day 3

Morning everyone, such a busy day. I think that all the people who were put off on Wednesday by the weather, decided that Friday was the day they would come! Personally the voice has pretty much gone, the shoes feel as thin as carbon copy paper but we all have to rememebr that for our visitors, it's their first day so a warm welcome always awaits on the guroo stands.

In terms of "busy-ness" the Guroo functional skills stands were overwhelmed at time, despite the fact that we had 9 people manning them, although with just 5 machines to demo, there was queues so if you were one who was waiting, sorry. Lots of interest in what we do from people looking to populate VLEs.

I found another couple of stands with links to functional skills. the stock market game and the small business game, both close to each other in location and spirit, have mapped to the standards and to the Business and IT Diplomas.

None of the exam boards are approved yet of course so resources from them remain as rare as a quick commute in the snow, but Pearsons have made some of their resources whiteboard friendly as well as student and teacher books.

Even the very big resource banks such as Channel 4 Clipbank are still subject dependent and not referenced to functional skills.

On the Diploma side, the SSAT have some interactive resources for a couple of the Diplomas, quite similar to the u-xplore concept of providing students with experience of the practical aspects of the Diploma.

Had a few words with BKSB but quite naturally, they are not that willing to tell me about what they are planning so I can't really comment on their move from Key Skills to Functional Skills.
The NWGFL had announced last year they were doing Maths Functional Skills but they don't have it this year so maybe their plans have changed.

So nothing brand brand new so to speak but developments all round.

Posted by Jonathan Wells of guroo functional skills, the very best company in 14-19 resources for UK education.