Guroo Functional Skills Newsletter 23/02/10

Our bi-weekly look at the world of Functional Skills.

The demise of ALAN in 14-19 is announced, exam boards gearing up for accreditation, functional skills live blog with a Liverpool teacher, 'tis the season for conferences and bulletins, and transition arrangements.

Changes to funding for ALAN. DCSF and LSC have published a statement of priorities and investment strategy in which it stated that providers are now expected to deliver functional skills qualification for young people where ever possible. This means that it should no longer be necessary for learners to take the Certificates in Adult Literacy or Adult Numeracy. Subject to confirmation, adult literacy and numeracy qualifications will no longer be funded for young people aged 14-19 after 2010/11. Full text here.

Exam boards gearing up for accreditation. In advance of the QCDA March 19th announcement on "who got through" we've met several exam boards recently: EDI are looking for people to write on-screen assessments - get in touch with Cheryl Bott in the first instance (mention us and she'll know where it came from) CherylBott@ediplc.com. OCR have got a series of Functional Skills events lined up covering all subjects and all levels. Go to their event booker and search using Functional Skills.

Tis the conference season - and we can add to that the publication season as well! Register for your digital copy of Delivering Diplomas Magazine here. Simon Boyd Publishing has another 14-19 skills bulletin coming out shortly. See Guroo at ASCL (5/6 March - Hammersmith), Naace (17 March - Blackpool), Diploma Conference (18 March - Birmingham) where we'll also be delivering the Functional Skills workshop.

Get local! We pride ourselves on finding links you won't find anywhere else. We spotted this in the pages of the on-line version of the Liverpool Echo - a Functional Skills masterclass presented by Jacqueline Marshall, a teacher in Liverpool, as a live blog. Experienced Functional Skills practitioners probably won't find anything new here but you may find the comments (which are based on real life reflections from the edexcel pilot) interesting.

Transition arrangements announced. Ofqual have informed Awarding Organisations that learners can carry forward their component achievements in Functional English from the pilot to the post-pilot qualifications for a period of 12 months only (September 2010 to August 2011). More on the WJEC site here.