September 24th - the Functional Skills
newsletter
What a busy Autumn! The focus on English and maths has
really taken hold and confidence in Functional Skills is at an all-time high
(more on this based on the survey in the next newsletter). And the
evidence is much more than anecdotal, Guroo are recording website usage levels
more than five times higher than this time last year with more than 5000
initial assessments being completed each week.
So a packed newsletter this week with features about politics,
16-19 accountability measures, events and as always, links to the ever popular
webinar series.
As always, we aim to send this newsletter out every two weeks,
your comments and thoughts are always appreciated - let us know what you'd like
us to cover in the newsletter by emailing the editor - jwells@guroo.co.uk
16-19 Accountability Consultation
The Government published a 10 week consultation on how new 16-19
accountability measures will be applied to FE and Sixth form colleges.
The consultation indicates there will be 5 key measures in new 16
to 19 performance tables covering attainment, destinations, completion,
progress, and combined attainment and completion.
A key driver in developing the tables is a new measure to
show how well post-16 providers do in helping young people get a C or better in
English and maths. As of this academic year, all young people who go into
post-16 education without a grade C in those subjects must continue to study
them until they get at least Level 2 in Maths and English, typically following
the Functional Skills route.
Apprenticeship recruitment,
traineeships and politics
There has been a lot of political comment about Apprenticeships
and Traineeships recently. The excellent linkedin group run by Lindsay McCurdey and available at tracks many of the
political developments, some of which are summarised below.
Some FE Colleges are requiring applicants to already have a
grade C GCSE in maths and English before accepting an application. Original
comment by Jonathan Wells based
on a FE Week investigation.
At the Labour
Party conference, a new policy was proposed where employers who recruit a
“tier 2” employee from outside of the EC would then have to create an
Apprenticeship opportunity in the same area of work.
On the negative side of Traineeships, reports of employer
abuse over working
hours and no pay from FE Week.
On the positive side of Traineeships, OCR celebrates the
first 25 successful trainees. This video gives the learners
perspective of the pilot.
World of Learning
Conference
The conference and exhibition season starts shortly with the first
major event of the year being
held at Birmingham NEC on 1/2 October. Guroo will be exhibiting on stand J100
featuring their all new Exam Practice solution, the unique Pay As You Go
pricing option and all visitors will be able to collect the brand new Learner
Journey Poster.
Apprenticeships4England have announced 4/5 March as their
conference date and again, Guroo is one of the sponsors of this event.
We're expecting a January date for the next All Things
Functional Event organised by EMSKills and don't forget Learning
Technologies/Learning and Skills in
January.
Wednesday Webinar at 4.00pm
"The Learner Journey" is Wednesday's webinar with
Jonathan Wells, on Wednesday 25th September at 4pm. Join us and get your
free poster!
A look at the complete Learner Journey. And as a special
"treat", everyone who joins us live on Wednesday will be sent a brand
new, full colour, A0, pre-production Learner Journey poster. But even
with this enticement, we know that many more people enjoy coming back for the
recording afterwards, so if you want to join or just want to watch the
recording, just drop an email to info@guroo.co.uk
Join us on Wednesday 25th September at 4pm.
All previous
webinars are recorded and available anytime for playback - login as a guest and
the password is password. Simply click on
the links below and don’t forget, if you’d like to have your own 1:1 webinar
looking at how Guroo can help you support Functional Skills, just call us on
0191 305 5045 or email info@guroo.co.uk and we’ll take it from there.
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