Newsletter edition 215

Edition 215 - FridayMarch 11th 2016

Changing from your existing provider can sometimes be a bit frustrating but to help all those frustrated BKSB users upgrade to SkillsBuilder, ForSkills have announced a new programme called "no loss upgrade plan".  Read about this and all the advanced developments that make SkillsBuilder the UK's favourite below.

Ofsted produce too many reports to summarise them all, but every now and we dip into the comments about English and maths and we've picked a few out below, along with this week’s news about Apprenticeships.

As always, feel free to contact Jonathan Wells, the editor of this newsletter on 0191 3055045 or [jonathan@forskills.co.uk](mailto:jonathan@forskills.co.uk)

2016 Survey Results

2016 Maths and English Survey for Post-16 Education

The full report will be available at the AAC16 conference in Birmingham on 16 March but, in the meantime, we're delighted to release the results of the providers and suppliers section of the 2016 Annual Functional Skills Survey.

It is the largest independent survey in the sector and over the 5 years has received more than 1200 responses. This year’s survey results are based on 244 responses, an increase of almost 20% on last year’s responses, with the results providing a statistically significant insight into the sectors opinions about providers and suppliers of English and maths solutions.

Highlights from the results of this year’s Providers and Suppliers survey include:

Overall providers of English and maths solutions

• ForSkills was rated best overall supplier, Guroo was second and bksb third.

Initial assessment and diagnostics

• ForSkills, Guroo and bksb together account for almost all activity in IAD - responses related to other suppliers were too small to measure.
• ForSkills/Guroo is most popular and best-rated for Functional Skills amongst training providers, work-based learning and adult learning.
• bksb is most popular in colleges and for GCSE IAD with ForSkills/Guroo resources rated best in GCSE.

Customer support and learner engagement

• For support and learner engagement, more than 70% of all respondents voted ForSkills/Guroo as the best provider, receiving more than 3 times as many votes as bksb.

Awarding organisations

• Of the 6 largest providers, NCFE rated best supplier, Pearson EDI and C&G both below average ratings.
• Respondents rate faster turnaround of results and free initial assessment and diagnostic tool as the most useful additional services.

Portfolio providers

• Of the 5 largest eportfolio providers, OneFile and ForSkills are rated highly, Smart Assessor is below average.