BETT 2012

Just a quick blog update for readers to let you know about Functional Skills at BETT 2012.

So the biggest companies operating at BETT are Guroo on stands S67 and V28 - Guroo offer a complete Functional Skills solution, written especially for Functional Skills (no Key Skills adapted work here). Two very nice 3sq m stands in seperate halls staffed by people who really do know their Functional Skills inside out! Initial Assessment and Diagnostic, reports, teaching and learning resources, and learner led pricing models are all part of the market leading package for Functional Skills from Guroo.

BKSB ignored me as usual and wouldn't come over to speak about Functional Skills. Their stand is a big 36 sqm affair populated with lots of comfy chairs but the BKSB live product that has been promised for the last year doesn't seem to be there according to visitors who came to see both Guroo and them. And with a fully built up stand at BETT costing something towards £1000 per sq m, that seems like an awful lot of cost to recover from sales.

Other companies, well Nelson Thornes have a poster, Edexcel have some stuff, the lovely people from CIA Training are here with ICT solutions, Promethean have Functional Skills solutions on their Planet content system,and the AOs all have lots of teaching resources for their particular brand of assessment. So more than last year, but the market leaders are well established now.

Visitor numbers - better than we expected but with the market still quite quiet, we weren't expecting a great day. A satisfactory day is probably the best way to describe it all.

All the best - Jonathan