Making Sense of Functional Skills Newsletter Nov 8th

November 8th - the Functional Skills newsletter

In this issue, we have very important news about the future of Functional Skills in Apprenticeships, an update from the Awarding Organsiations on how on-screen assessments are developing, events and news that are relevant to Functional Skills, and the launch of Wednesday Webinars from Guroo.

The Minister confirms that Functional Skills will replace Key Skills in all Apprenticeship programmes in September.

We received confirmation this week from John Hayes MP, the Minister of State for Further Education and Skills, that Functional Skills will definitely replace Key Skills by September.

The Minister said

“I want to re-assure you that I am committed to replacing Key Skills with Functional Skills in English and Maths (and ICT if required by the framework), as a mandatory component of all Apprenticeship frameworks, from the end of September 2012.

I was interested to read the finding from your own survey, particularly that there is a high level of confidence with Functional Skills across providers, colleges and schools. We know that Functional Skills involve high quality teaching away from the job and this is important to provide apprentices with an essential base of high quality transferable skills to support their career progression.”

So there we have it in black and white; absolute confirmation that Functional Skills in Apprenticeships is the way forward, and the Minister's confirmation that he sees Functional Skills as essential.

The full text of the letter is here.

Changes to on-screen assessments from the Awarding Organisations

In the same week that the Minister confirmed his support for Functional Skills, City & Guilds made an update announcement about Functional Skills assessments covering:

• Functional Skills Mathematics on-screen available now
• Functional Skills ICT on-screen arriving this month
• Anytime paper assessment moves closer

Click here for the City & Guilds annoucement.

Edexcel are following a similar path with an update to their progress towards on-screen assessments here.

And we know of at least one AO that is developing an assessment system where students sit their exam on a Friday, with results on Monday! Keep reading this newsletter for more information about all these developments.

14-19 events and other news

You'll find the Guroo team at "The Future of Apprenticeships" in London on November 24th. Click here for a link to the full programme. This is an event that Guroo will be attending as exhibitors.

Much as we'd love to be there, unfortunately we can't attend the Skills Conference in Nottingham this week. Have a great time if you're going and maybe we'll see you at this event next year.

Learning and Skills Network (LSN, one time managers of the Functional Skills Support programme and heavily involved in many aspects of 14-19 education and support) have gone into administration. More on this from FE Week here.

The Wednesday Webinar from Guroo

Guroo are delivering a series of "Wednesday Webinars" over the next few weeks.

Scheduled for late afternoon so you can grab a cuppa, click the link, and relax while we take you through an on-screen presentation in around 20 minutes.

• Wednesday 9th November - Initial Assessment and Diagnostics for Functional Skills by Guroo
• Wednesday 16th November - Teaching and Learning Resources for Functional Skills by Guroo
• Wednesday 23rd November - What's new in Guroo 2.1 (aimed mainly at existing customers)

How does it work? It's easy; email us at info@guroo.co.uk (from your work email address please) and we'll send you full joining instructions. All you need is an online computer with speakers or headphones.

You can just sit back, watch and listen - or interact and ask questions via online chat.

Is Wednesday a bad day for you? Then email us and we'll sort something out just for you!

Functional Skills Newsletter June 7th

June 7th - the Functional Skills newsletter

This week we have items about which of the Awarding Organisations are the most popular for Functional Skills; news about the Enhancing Literacy and Numeracy conference; photos of prize winners; a request to please "Plus 1" www.guroo.info and a summary of press comment.

Enhancing Literacy and Numeracy conference - Next steps for SfL and Functional Skills - July 6th in London.

We're very happy to include notification of this conference organised by our friends at Neil Stewart Associates. They write:

The majority of the 2020 workforce is already out of formal education. The Wolf Review made a number of recommendations including ensuring that those on vocational routes post-16 continue to study English and mathematics. We know that to maintain the drive to improve basic literacy, language and numeracy, and ensure all adults have a basic platform for employability, the skills system must respond to those already in employment.

This annual ‘Skills for Life’ conference brought to you by 157 Group and NRDC (National Research and Development Centre for Adult Literacy and Numeracy), will give you the opportunity to:

• Examine the critical challenges for life-long learning in the UK and hear how adult learning is equipping the economy to meet these challenges
• Hear how colleges and training institutions are building the capacity of their numeracy provision to ensure it is sufficient to support people to reach the functional level
• Share experiences and innovative ideas for embedding SfL/functional skills into existing curriculum areas
• Review the latest developments in the functional skills agenda, including structure, standards and assessment methods
• Set out the opportunities for employers of enhancing work-based learning
• Examine the role of technology and its contribution to new teaching methods

Now in its 8^th year it features an expert line-up of speakers for you to hear, meet and network with including:

• Robert Pheasant, Head of Skills for Life, Learning and Skills Improvement Service (LSIS)
• Karen Adriaanse HMI, National Adviser for Employability, Ofsted
• Helen Casey, Executive Director, NRDC
• Nick Linford, Lsect
• Jill Lanning, Chief Executive, Federation of Awarding Bodies
• Lee Davies, Deputy Chief Executive, Institute for Learning

Register here or contact jacqueline.gorman@neilstewartassociates.co.uk (please mention the Functional Skills newsletter)

Which Awarding Bodies are most active in Functional Skills?

The annual qualifications market report from Ofqual was published last week. In the last year of the pilot, just over 240,000 Functional Skills qualifications were awarded.

AQA is the biggest provider of GCSE with 45% of the market followed by Edexcel with 22% and OCR with 21%. What I find interesting is how this compares to Functional Skills.

The most popular choice of awarding body for Functional Skills was split between Edexcel and AQA with C&G and OCR in third and fourth spot respectively so Edexcel are clearly outperforming their competitors in Functional Skills qualifications!

Take That Lynn plus 1!

Two prizes here, one for Lynn Preston of YH Training in Scarborough who in turn ran another competition for the other ticket won by Paula!

We're sorry about the quality of the photograph, but it does show Lynn with "the boys" in the background!

In the press over the last couple of weeks.

The Daily Telegraph has an interview with Tim Oates from Cambridge Assessment about the need for "rigorous" vocational qualificiations at 16.

The Guardian reports on the latest BIS report that employability skills are the key to success in prison education.

The Excellence Gateway has been revamped as LSIS bring together resources from a number of different systems under one roof however the section on Functional Skills does seem to lean heavily on OCR resources - perhaps there's more work to be done there!

FE News has a report on how the skills gap is contributing to record levels of youth unemployment.

The TES carried a story about the demand for STEM from business and the issues that the education system was finding in supplying this demand.

Functional Skills Newsletter April 26th

Please follow us on Twitter @guroofs and like us on Facebook at guroo.functionalskills. Congratulations to everyone planning to get married this week and like most of the rest of the country, we too will be off again on a long weekend. The next newsletter is likely to be Tuesday May 10th - if you have anything you'd like us to know about, just get in touch jwells@guroo.co.uk

April 26th - the functional skills newsletter

This week we cover the controversial TES story with interesting AoC comments supporting Functional Skills, more about employability skills in Pyschology Today, Functional English in Japan and our Take That prizewinner celebrates.

Training Providers' students still struggling with Functional Skills

A headline piece about Functional Skills was run in the TES (FE Focus) on 22nd April. It was difficult to get the gist of the report which basically said that foundation learners studying at training centres were struggling to come to terms with Functional Skills because they were harder to pass.

There was interesting support for Functional Skills from the Association of Colleges who said that colleges had embraced Functional Skills “Functional Skills are certainly seen as more academically rigorous, and there may have been some initial resistance from students on courses not traditionally associated with high levels of literacy and numeracy.”

Now that the Federation of Awarding Bodies and Association of Colleges have come out in support of Functional Skills over Key Skills, only the Association of Learning Providers remains as supporters of Key Skills.

The DfE confirmed is was looking again at the postponement of Functional Skills in apprenticeships following the Wolf report where Professor Wolf described Key Skills as offering "no progression" and "valueless".

Employability Skills part 2

We ran this story about employability skills last newsletter and we've decided to leave it in again with even more links from academic journals - it was clearly very useful for lots of readers.

A really interesting link was from Psychology Today entitled "Whose Children Will Get the Best Jobs in the 21st Century?" and subtitled "The best jobs will go to applicants who can think". It's a good read and what really caught my eye was this;

"This assembly line, test prep system doesn't prepare today's children to what the best job employers are already seeking - the ability to transfer knowledge to new contexts and apply that knowledge along with critical analysis of new information, judgment, creative problem solving, and the ability to evaluate and select which new data and tools can be applied in new ways to solve new problems and create new outcomes."

Now where have we seen that before I wonder? Here's a selection of links:

Psychology Today

Daily Mail front page

The Telegraph

BBC Radio 5 interview

The Manufacturer

Functional Japanese?

I have no idea how, why or where I came across this and indeed, I'm not entirely sure it's for real but if you go to Amazon Japan, you can buy Functional English books and resources published by Pearson (edexcel) and OCR!

Just ￥8,377 will get you the OCR Pilot CD ROM for E3 and L1/L2 or if you're feeling a bit richer, why not try Pearsons Functional English teaching and learning resources CD for ￥51,099.

So far, there are no reader comments against each of them so why not be the first. For info, £1 buys you ￥135 so if they do sell in quantities, both OCR and Pearson will be very happy and if you do buy, do let the newsletter know what Amazon recommends next time you log on!

Lynn celebrates

Our independent judge had a tough time but when the crunch came, she judged this as the best entry in our Take That competition.

Guroo works by being an ideal evolution of a training solution!

Congratulations to Lynn Preston of YH Training in Scarborough. She's already brushed off the "I love Robbie" T shirt and will be joining us on May 31st in Sunderland - pics to follow!

Functional Skills Newsletter Jan 8th

Making Sense of Functional Skills - fortnightly news and comment about Functional Skills

edited and compiled by Jonathan Wells - jwells@guroo.co.uk 0191 305 5051

February 8th - in this issue

Mick Waters on skills; the end of free functional skills training; links to the performance tables which now include figures for performance in English and maths at level 1 & 2; win fantastic executive box tickets to see Take That in Sunderland.

Mick Waters on the national curriculum review

This piece appeared in the TES Comment on 28th January. Mick Waters (ex QCA and now Professor of Education at Wolverhampton) wrote about the review. What caught my eye was his focus on skills and I quote.

"What is missing and what matters?

A key word almost absent from the remit and from the white paper is "skills". In countries that are successful in the international tests, skills lie at the heart of the curriculum. Such skills are usually those that enhance the learning of the subject disciplines, but are also those that equip a young person for "the opportunities, responsibilities, and experiences of life"

Singapore has "life skills" and "knowledge skills" that underpin all areas of the curriculum, and New Zealand and Scotland use the term "key competencies".

They recognise that employers and business will need skills for the future, while also realising that without being able to read and write and manage numbers most people will not survive."

No more free training for Functional Skills

We understand that National Strategies work is now being completed and so there will be no more free training for schools. Although National Strategies actually finish in March, the Functional Skills contract finished on 31st December.

With no nationally co-ordinated support approach now available, Guroo is developing a programme that will bring together experienced Functional Skills practitioners and consultants with schools, colleges and training providers who need help and support.

Whether you are a provider or consumer of help and support, we'd like to know more about what you need or can provide. Get in touch with Jonathan.

Take That!

Click here to get the full rules and download the entry postcard - and yes you will have to think, it's not a free prize draw.

The prize is for two tickets to an executive box on Tuesday 31st May show at the Stadium of Light in Sunderland. Included in the prize package:

• Pre concert 2 course meal with coffee
• Post concert tea/coffee and biscuits
• Private balcony for concert viewing
• Hostess service
• Minibar (at additional cost)
• Cloak facilities within each box
• Access to after show party with disco until late
• Souvenir programme
• Hotel (room only)

All you have to do is get to Sunderland.

The next newsletter is scheduled for Tuesday February 22nd - if you have any comments, suggestions or your own news that you'd like to publicise, just let me know.