Making Sense of Functional Skills Newsletter August 25th

August 25th - the Functional Skills newsletter

A holiday special newsletter that focuses on Policy announcements and press comment covering the Further Education Reform Programme consultation and the Vorderman Report on Maths Education along with a couple of good news stories about Functional Skills. And if I may add, it's really good to say that just about every story I've monitored over the holidays about Functional Skills has been positive.

Have your say on FE reform

The Government has published a paper entitled "Next Steps in Implementing the Further Education Reform Programme".

This is part of the "New Challenges, New Chances" consultation. Highlights of the proposal include amongst other things:

• A new framework for the FE sector will help improve employer and provider collaborative partnerships.
• From 2013/14, loans for adults aged 24 and over will be available to support Level 3 and 4 qualifications, including Higher Apprenticeships.
• Providing greater freedom for the sector to ensure vocational qualifications meet employer requirements.
• The provision of basic literacy and numeracy for adults will be reviewed to help providers offer responsive solutions to meet shortages.
• As part of general changes to form a more responsive sector, FE providers will have the opportunity to strengthen employer-focused courses by developing innovative delivery methods to meet employer requirements.

"A World Class Maths Education For All"

Carol Vorderman led a team that was commissioned by the Conservative Party when in opposition to look at Maths teaching in all sectors. This report was published in August and came down very heavily in support of Functional Maths. Key points I picked out include:

• 75% of those with a grade C GCSE in Maths can’t do simple percentages, ratios and areas. No point in force fed trigonometry and algebra after age 14 when young people can’t even calculate a percentage.
• Need two GCSE in Maths – one practical (including Financial Maths) and one for those who will continue to A level and beyond.
• Radical change is necessary – can’t be right that only 15% of pupils study Maths post 16 when in other industrialised nations, it’s nearer 100%. Ms Vorderman said more than 300,000 16-year-olds each year completed their education without enough understanding of Maths to function properly in their work or private lives.
• The syllabuses must be allowed to reward students who are able to achieve a higher standard in a smaller area of the curriculum, rather than a low standard across a much wider curriculum (however this is eventually structured). Regulation currently prevents this from happening even though nearly half of our young people fail GCSE. By the age of 14 many of these have been turned off Mathematics and, when they finish studying Mathematics two years later, are still functionally innumerate.
• This often leaves pupils and students able to answer examination questions but without the functionality that they will need if they are to put the subject to use in employment or in other areas of study.

CBI comments on Maths report “Maths is a subject of critical importance, and this report rightly highlights that there needs to be more focus on teaching ‘useful maths’ that is relevant for future employment and day-to-day life. Businesses are most concerned about basic levels of numeracy and it’s alarming that more than one in five 16-19 year olds are considered functionally innumerate. To help address this problem, all young people should continue to study some form of maths until the age of 18. Pupils with good maths ability should continue to study the full curriculum, but all pupils, regardless of ability, should go on to study a functional numeracy qualification.” “Employers say that even those who pass GCSE are not functional in mathematics, meaning that they cannot apply what they have learnt in the workplace” The full link is here. Good news stories! As well as policy, it's always good to reflect on the little snippets of good news stories we hear about. Here's a couple that we picked up. We like this one from Rochdale, it's the sort of think we all want to see happen regularly. And a one from the end of term from Central Skills.