AELP Support for Functional Skills

AELP support Functional Skills

The national AELP conference is underway with lots of discussion on funding, employer led training demand and the integration of Government initiatives.

One of the more interesting comments came from Ingeus who were referring to their skills data and the claim that a person with good English, maths and ICT skills is THREE times more likely to re-enter the labour market - we're surprised it's just 3x! 

In relation to maths and English, the AELP manifesto for 2015 recognises the absolute importance of having good English and maths skills but questions whether GCSE is the best route to show this.  AELP will therefore continue to lobby for the retention of Functional Skills until the new (2017) GCSEs are proven to provide the Functional Skills required and to be delivered flexibly and on demand.

MyGuroo self assessment for Maths and English

www.myguroo.co.uk has been re-launched.

MyGuroo is a very simple to use self assessment for Functional Skills and GCSE maths and English.  It takes around 40 minutes to complete each test, at the end you get to download a full diagnostic and each test credit costs just £1.95.

What more can be said - very easy, very simple, very accurate, very useful!

Sample diagnostic report shown below!

Reading between the lines tutorial videos

To access this video free of charge simply click here.
It is a 5 minute tutorial video that mixes computer graphics with animation and voiced over by a subject expert.
Functional Skills covered include Level 2 English, fact, opinion, bias and implicit meaning.
Uploaded by Jonathan Wells of Guroo May 2014.
 

Where's the news?

Normally I get to write a newsletter every two weeks - but this week I can't find anything sensible to write about!
Hey, ho, I shall have a week off - Jonathan

Guroo Curator™

Guroo Curator™ is almost ready to launch

Guroo Curator™ is a brand new part of Guroo 4.0 due for release quite shortly and as always, immediately available free of charge to all Guroo customers with all inclusive licences.

We've called it Guroo Curator™ to reflect the effort we have applied in searching and selecting free publicly available content for presentation that we think is high quality, consistent and relevant to Functional Skills and GCSE.  We've then tagged the content to the skills criteria so they will appear in all Guroo searches and added both an explanation and rating.

With Guroo Curator™, we're making your job of finding good quality additional resources easy, as well as adding new resources linked to those parts of the Functional Skills and GCSE skills that can be hard to address using e-learning.

So here's where you come in - we can't possibly search and review everything out there, so please let me know what resources you suggest we link into Guroo Curator™.  Simply email me with a URL and a few details and we'll take it from there.

Jonathan Wells

Guroo Ltd - the UK's best provider of Functional Skills Solutions (officially)!

Funding rates for maths and English from Entry Level to Level 2.

Funding rates for maths and English from Entry Level to Level 2.

The SFA has produced a document that lists all provision for which public funding has been approved for 2014/15.  The full document is available here but for simplicity, the funding rates for popular Functional Skills and GCSE qualifications are listed below.

• £941 for Entry Level Functional Skills qualifications in maths.
• £724 for Entry Level Functional Skills qualifications in English.
• £724 for Level 1&2 Functional Skills qualifications in maths.
• £724 for Level 1&2 Functional Skills qualifications in English.
• £724 for GCSE qualifications in maths.
• £724 for GCSE qualifications in English.
• £336 for Functional Skills qualifications in ICT at all levels.
• £300 for free standing maths qualifications at Level 2.

On a separate but related subject, Ofsted are very keen to see "stretch and challenge" in programmes of study so it's crucial to ensure that a rigorous and credible initial assessment is taken by learners prior to selecting the level of course.  Guroo provides exactly that, either as a standalone test or as part of a full resource programme. 

GCSE vs Functional Skills

More on GCSE vs Functional Skills and funding!

The two biggest issues in the sector remain the question of GCSE or Functional Skills in Apprenticeships and Funding.

The Guardian recently polled half a dozen specialists in the sector for their views. Their views are very much in line with current thinking, suggesting that setting a minimum entry requirement of GCSE maths and English in Apprenticeships and changing the way the funding system works will both have very significant negative effects on Apprenticeships.

And it's not just the sector that is worried about maths and English, The Government through BIS is forming a research centre to look into the issue of adult literacy and numeracy.  This FE Week report is generally supportive, although with the research being focussed solely upon adult education, it's impact on the GCSE vs Functional Skills debate is likely to be minimal.