Apparently Geordie people have the sexiest accent - now that's news!
Jonathan x
Monday, 12 April 2010
Off message
Normally I write about Functional Skills, but it's my blog so every now and again I see or hear something that makes me smile.
Friday, 9 April 2010
Good article in the Times today
All about Functional Skills and it argues the case quite clearly.
I must add that I think it's a bit of a cheek for ATL say that no support has been given when in reality, loads of support has been given and is available but schools and colleges have been in denial that Functional Skills will arrive so have chosen not to embrace the change.
the text is below in full.
Company bosses have long despaired about the lack of basic skills shown by many school-leavers turning up at the workplace.
Sir Terry Leahy, the chief executive of Tesco and Sir Stuart Rose, the chairman of Marks & Spencer, have both spoken about the difficulty of finding literate and numerate recruits. And a report on functional skills for the CBI indicated that more than half of employers thought young people applying for jobs were inarticulate, unable to perform simple calculations or understand written instructions.
The concerns have forced the Government to introduce a Functional Skills qualification from September which will put English, maths and information communications technology (ICT) into real-world contexts — and try to make sure that school-leavers can read, write and add up.
Sandra Stalker, the director of general qualifications and life skills at the Qualifications and Curriculum Development Agency, a government quango, says: “We have always taught kids to read and write and add up ... What has been lacking has been the application of the knowledge in real life and work style environments.”
Results of a three-year pilot qualification have not been released by the agency but it is pressing ahead with the launch and says that “on the whole” those consulted were positive.
Samina Khan, the agency’s head of lifelong learning and skills, says the qualification is necessary because of an existing lack of confidence among students when it comes to putting their skills into practice. “They will learn to do adding up or write a piece of extended writing, but employers want them to be able to apply all those skills.”
The best employees are those who can approach a problem and use their basic knowledge to solve it, she says, while the ability to write a business letter, tot up an invoice or keep a record of a meeting is the minimum that employers expect.
“The Functional Skills qualification will enable them to demonstrate to employers that they have mastered those particular skills,” says Ms Stalker.
The new exam will pose such real-life problems as:
It takes 1.75 metres of denim to make a pair of jeans. Denim costs £3.50 per metre. (a) How much will the material for the jeans cost? (b) If the price of denim rises by 5 per cent, how much will the material then cost?’
The CBI wants the exam to be assessed not on a pass or failure basis, but to display a mark for employers to see how well candidates have done. There are fears that fewer young people will succeed under the new system compared to the number who went through the Key Skills qualification, which it replaces.
Teresa Frith, skills policy manager at the Association of Colleges, fears the bar may have been raised too high. “We are told that the functional skills levels tend to be about half a level up from their key skill equivalent and we believe a lot of learners will find this quite challenging.”
Functional skills have already been introduced as part of the new diploma — the qualification that aims to bridge the gap between vocational and academic learning. They proved to be the stumbling block for candidates in the initial stages and Ofsted said that there was “little firm evidence of their achievement in functional skills”, in their first report into the qualification.
Almost half the teenagers studying for the new diploma were not receiving satisfactory teaching in English, maths and ICT, the inspectors said.
Ms Stalker says that the failings were only teething problems. “We have only had one year working through the diploma. Kids won’t do well in a functional skills assessment unless they have been taught properly as an integral part of the system.
“At the early stages that wasn’t happening because teachers hadn’t had the training.”
But business and teachers’ leaders warn that there will be similar problems this September.
Susan Anderson, the CBI director for education and skills, says: “Many students have only been entered for the test, rather than specifically taught these [functional] skills. Teachers need the support and time needed to teach these new modules — assessment only isn’t good enough.”
Adrian Prandle, a policy adviser at the Association of Teachers and Lecturers, said that members of the union were worried about the widescale introduction of the qualification.
“Our members feel unprepared. We [told] the QCDA that teachers and lecturers needed more support but I don’t think that has materialised.”
As well as being able to apply mathematics, English and ICT to real life, employers need staff with “soft” skills that are harder to teach and difficult to examine.
The CBI’s report on functional skills quoted employers as saying that they were “genuinely more interested in attitude” than scores in an exam.
They warned that many young people lacked a good manner with customers, the ability to turn up on time to work and were unable to take responsibility for themselves and their appearance.
Until there is a qualification in adulthood, they may have to carry on sounding the alarm.
Thursday, 1 April 2010
FS News - special edition 1st April
A stop press edition Functional Skills news.
STOP PRESS ..... STOP PRESS ....QDCA expected to make announcement about major changes to 14-19 today, changes to Functional Skills examination environment conditions and a final solution to manage cheating in assessments
QDCA expected to make major announcement about GCSEs today! To coincide with the official birth today of QDCA and Ofquals, we're expecting an announcement this morning about major changes to the 14-19 qualification structure to better accommodate and reflect today's lifestyle.
- The new GCSE "exam toolkit" will feature a pay as you go mobile phone loaded with 10 text messages and 5 minutes of voice calls. Students will be able to use these in all exams but the limited number will mean students will need to learn about priorities.
- A new short course "GCSE Social Networking" will be launched with support from Facebook and Twitter. As an experiment it will feature a new top grade A** for candidates who are able to attract more than 1000 followers before the final assessments which we understand will be taken on-line using mobile devices.
- A fifth suite of learning will be added to existing four funded suites (Apprenticeship, Diploma, GCSE/A Level, Foundation). Unnamed as yet, we understand it is based loosely around celebrity lifestyles, will be focused on PR and gossip and will be aimed at students who think the world owes them a living.
Changes to Functional Skills assessment conditions! To better reflect the real world nature of Functional Skills, the dates for all Functional Skills examinations will now be kept secret with students being told about them just 15 minutes before they start.
An employer's representative was quoted as saying "in business, we never know what's going to happen next but when it does, our bosses expect you to have the answer straight away so this change just reflects what happens in the world".
A final end to cheating! Functional Skills will also be used as a testing ground in a new effort to end cheating in exams. In a radical change, all rules will be scrapped to encourage peer discussion, practical use of technology and extensive use of contacts. Dubbed by the Daily Mail as "it's not what you know, it's who you know" exams, it's another change that reflects the real world nature of the qualification.
Problem solving in the real world! Continuing the theme of problem solving, we spotted this video and thought it would be a great starter to for all lessons on April 1st. Click here to view.
Enjoy! - from all the guys (and gals) at guroo - happy holidays!
| To forward this email to a friend click here This email has been sent to you by Guroo Ltd Guroo Ltd evolve centre Rainton Bridge Business Park Cygnet Way Houghton le Spring DH4 7SL To edit your details/unsubscribe click here  Sign-Up.to : Right Person. Right Place. Right Time. |
Tuesday, 30 March 2010
FS news Mar 30
Our bi-weekly look at the world of Functional Skills.
A special Easter edition featuring accredited exam boards (and an explanation of why English Level 2 isn't there) and the new DCSF policy statement about Functional Skills.
Accredited exam boards for FS announced! The table below shows who got through. We were surprised by the rather short list so we did a little investigation and we believe the reasons are:
- In the past, qualifications could be accredited "with conditions", this no longer happens
- So even where a very minor change is required, until that change is made, the qualification will not be accredited hence the rather short list
- The next date for submissions is 31st May with announcement by end July when we expect lots more exam boards will make it in time for a September start
DCSF make it clear. DCSF have taken the opportunity to restate the Functional Skills position. Two things caught our eye:
"We expect schools to give all young people the opportunity to take stand-alone Functional Skills qualifications by the end of Key Stage 4, alongside GCSEs and any other qualifications they may be taking. This is because only Functional Skills qualifications can provide a guarantee that a young person has the full range of functional skills in a subject"
"Functional Skills qualifications in English, mathematics and ICT and the underpinning curriculum changes in schools will provide a single ladder of progression in these skills, from Key Stage 3 upwards"
Click here for the full statement.
| To forward this email to a friend click here This email has been sent to you by Guroo Ltd Guroo Ltd evolve centre Rainton Bridge Business Park Cygnet Way Houghton le Spring DH4 7SL To edit your details/unsubscribe click here  Sign-Up.to : Right Person. Right Place. Right Time. |
Monday, 29 March 2010
Astonishing exam budget
I couldn't quite believe this when i saw it in the paper. The exam market for GCSE, A Level and vocational qualifications is worth £930million a year.
The number of qualifications has grown from just under 3,000 to nearly 10,000 in just 10 years as there is growing tendency to accredit just about everything as well.
But it's the value that gets me - £900million - WOW.
Friday, 26 March 2010
More Functional Skills?
Functional Skills for University?
Language Maths and Reasoning - sounds very "functional" to me!
Wednesday, 24 March 2010
Guroo newsletter March 23
Our bi-weekly look at the world of Functional Skills.
Functional Skills and Foundation Learning budgets, getting employers involved, Delivering Diplomas Magazine issue 2 out now, news from the official line and a teeny advert from the Guroo guys.
At last - money for Functional Skills! DCSF have made an early announcement about the 14-19 support package for next financial year and it recognises the importance of Foundation Learning and Functional Skills.
"The main purpose of this grant is to enable you to prepare for Diploma delivery; however, we recognise that you want more flexibility to spend this funding in the way that will best help you prepare to deliver the reforms. Therefore, this year, you can also use some of this grant to prepare to deliver Foundation Learning and Functional Skills where this best meets your local needs."
More details from here - click through to the letter for actual amounts allocated.
It's food and drink for employer engagement. A criticism often heard is "will employers care, understand and take account of Functional Skills qualifications. The UK's biggest private employer (Tesco) is already on-board, and this story is a typical example of the moves to inform HR professionals across the country.
Delivering Diplomas Spring 2010 just published. Published to coincide with an excellent conference last week, the 52 page magazine is available here. Anyone who cares to respond to me at jwells@guroo.co.uk with nominations for the best article may very well win a couple of mugs, pens, badges and anything else with the guroo logo we have in the office that we can fit into a bag and post!
The official line. QCDA seem to have forgotten to place their latest newsletter on their website, the latest DCSF 14-19 newsletter, a similar offering from LSIS.
Accredited exam boards? We're still waiting for the accreditation announcement (due 19th March) about which boards have been approved to set Functional Skills assessments from September. We'll let you know when we've got it.
VLE flavours and Stewart "flexibility" Hutton? Finally a teeny advert for Guroo. The guys in the basement at Guroo Towers would like you all to know that the SCORM versions of Guroo resources are now up and running on a variety of VLEs including Moodle, itsLearning, Fronter and Sharepoint variants such as Kaleidos and LP+. Stewart (Sales Director) would like you to know that we have special March offers and that flexibility is his middle name. shutton@guroo.co.uk will get his attention.
| To forward this email to a friend click here This email has been sent to you by Guroo Ltd Guroo Ltd evolve centre Rainton Bridge Business Park Cygnet Way Houghton le Spring DH4 7SL To edit your details/unsubscribe click here  Sign-Up.to : Right Person. Right Place. Right Time. |
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)
Posts
