Which quals are the most valuable?

Written by Jonathan Wells of Guroo Functional Skills - leaders in 14-19 resources.

Of the level2 and level 3 quals good ones in terms of future earning power are A levels and 5+ GCSE including Maths and English.

Bad ones are BTEC, NVQ and C&G. Indeed even a level 3 BTEC scores less than 5+ GCSE in earning power and it's supposedly 1 level higher!

Ofqual stating the obvious

Ofqual are syaing that the Dilpoma needs to change. Of course it does, as a new qualification, it needs to be given the time and space to mature and develop.

On the functional skills side though Ms Tattersall said the demand for functional skills should remain part of the Diplomas. But her report says the functional skills tests have "some way to go before they can be regarded as fully satisfactory". Again, completely accepted.

Jonathan Wells

Guroo Functional Skills Newsletter 15/12/09

Our bi-weekly look at the world of functional skills.

New Delivering Diploma conference announced for March, a sneak look at the Guroo stand for BETT, how much do you know about Foundation Learning and the latest content bulletin from the basement in Guroo Towers.

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Delivering Diplomas Conference, March 18 @ Aston University. Our friends at sec-ed have told us the next Delivering Diploma conference will feature Iain Wright, Secretary of State for 14-19 Reform and Apprenticeships along with Teresa Bergin, Head of Diploma at QCDA. Click here for a special offer saving of 20% for "guroo friends" on the delegate fee. Please be aware it's a big file to download - we can email or post you a copy if you'd prefer just let me know at jwells@guroo.co.uk

Sneak preview of Guroo's BETT stand. the picture below is a sneak preview of our main stand backdrop for BETT, stand N48. Click on the picture to link to the latest Guroo Content Bulletin detailing all the updates, additions and changes to the Guroo service in the last few weeks.

The official line. There's been nothing from DCFS, no new videos on Teachers TV, the FSSP support section is "still under construction", even Teachernet's last update was 30th October. Still, it's good to know we can all have a few days without worrying we're missing something.

What do you know about Foundation Learning? Functional Skills is a key element of Foundation Learning at all levels. We noticed this diagram on the Excellence Gateway. We've linked it to some more key documents about Foundation Learning, some new, some old.

Jonathan's Functional Skills blog - 159 entries and counting.......

Click here for the new website for functional skills support from National Strategies and LSIS

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Safeguarding children

This has been an interesting one for us at guroo. We visit schools regularly, indeed during November, we did that more than 80 times as we show our functional skills wares around the country.

More and more we are getting asked for photo ID as we arrive on site. So much so that we've decided to produce our own ID cards with our CRB certification number and personal details.

It's all to do with the Safeguarding Children Act that became law in December. It's something that all of us in education will have to take account of.

Jonathan Wells - Managing Director of Guroo Ltd

Since when was an increase a decrease?

Lots of press outrage (well TES comment outrage) about teachers **only** getting a 1% pay rise from 2011 on top of a 2.3% payrise next year.

There's a big wide real world out there, that's a very good settlement and much much better than many. Tie it into excellent job security and I don't think that the public is going to be feeling sorry for teachers if the teaching unions call foul on this.

Jonathan Wells

Science getting the once over now

Report from Ofqual

These latest changes to secondary school science follow an Ofqual report that was critical of the way standards had fallen.

Ofqual made exam boards take immediate action after finding there was "clearly a cause for concern" in science GCSEs.

Among the criticisms of the current content, the Royal Society of Chemistry said entire exam papers contained no maths and some questions no science.

It said a new, more independent regulator with more clout was needed to prevent standards from such "dumbing down".

The assistant director of the lobby group the Campaign for Science and Engineering (Case), Dr Hilary Leevers, said: "Awarding bodies compete for custom among schools, and the schools, in turn, compete in the league tables, so there has been a driving down of standards.

We agree, we all use functional maths every day and it should be part of all curriculum. Jonathan Wells of www.guroo.info leaders in developing functional skills resources for the 14-19 curriculum.

Utter failure and still they complain

I have visited a number of young offenders places in the course of my consultancy career. I read today that just 4% of kids aged 14-19 are doing GCSE or A level. AT the same time, the people responsible for this education (LSC and the winners of their tenders) are complaining that things will get worse if Local Authorities take over responsibility.

How can they get worse - is 4% a fantastic result that can never be bettered? Of course not, kit's about time this area was shaken up to the core, it's a scandal and only ignored because we can all claim it's someone else's problem when in reality, good education and prospects will inevitably improve life prospects but bad education will ensure criminality remains an attractive option for them.

It's something I have written about before, I'll continue to write about in the furture until we recognise it as a problem that we can sttept to solve.

posted by Jonathan Wells, founder of Guroo, the UK's most successful company developing resources and content for functional skills in the 14-19 curriculum.

Independent schools not doing Diplomas

A report in the Independent says that leading independent schools have not taken up the diploma.

Come on guys - quel surprise!

You don't pay £27k per year (latest boarding fees at Abingdon school) to do the same course as you can do at the FE college.

You pay £27K per year to get the very results in A level to ensure you get into Oxford or Cambridge.

www.guroo.info resources for functional skills

Number 1 of 734

Guroo Bluffers Guide to functional skills is the number 1 functional skills resource on TES Connect.

this is based on the scores given, downloads and comments - a great result for Guroo!

For more infor go to www.guroo.info and get your own laminated version.

No more fiddling with values?

Now here's a story which I personally welcome.

It appears that Ofqual - the new exams regulator - will have the power to decide what is the relative value of qualifications particularly in 14-19 rather than the Government.

This is almost certainly in response to the "easy" vocational qualifications which can be worth 4 GCSEs each yet be taught in the time it takes to teach 1 or 2. Of course it is bound to affect the score given to Diplomas but only if the Government try to stretch the qualifications to give them a higher rating than they deserve.

I would also argue that some quals (such as functional skills) appear to be much harder to pass - maybe they should be given more equivalence then?

Posted by Jonathan Wells of Guroo Functional Skills www.guroo.info

Guroo Functional Skills Newsletter 17/11/09

Our bi-weekly look at the world of functional skills.

Ofqual publish new Functional Skills criteria, a new DCSF publication about Functional Skills in Diplomas, another chance to get your hands on the Guroo posters and intriguing thoughts about GNVQ, BTEC and OCR Nationals.

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Ofqual publish Functional Skills criteria. Last week, Ofqual published the Functional Skills qualifications criteria and the specific criteria for the individual Functional Skills in English, mathematics and ICT. These are the criteria against which all exam bodies will be expected to assess. A link to the download page is here.

Nuts and Bolts from DCSF. A new publication in the "nuts and bolts" series has hit the streets aimed at Functional Skills in Diplomas. 20 pages long, it reprises the main elements of Functional Skills and features case studies from Stoke, Dudley and Wolverhampton college. Click on the pic below to get to the right page in Teachernet.

Functional Skills standards mapping posters from Guroo. We had an astonishing level of requests for the poster as a result of this announcement two weeks ago. All our subscribers should have received copies by now but if you're not a customer, here's a another chance to request a pdf copy. Drop me an email at jwells@guroo.co.uk and I'll send you a pdf copy by return.

And finally, thoughts about unintended consequences. One of our customers asked us whether Functional Skills would be introduced to BTEC qualifications and this led us down a most revealing route which we think has big consequences. It appears that there will only be four funded qualifications routes from September 2010:

• GCSE/A Level

• Diplomas

• Apprenticeships

• Foundation Learning

That means OCR, BTEC, GNVQ qualifications WILL ONLY be funded as part of additional learning in Diplomas IF they are part of the QCF. Click here to read the latest on the QCDA website.

Jonathan's Functional Skills blog - 135 entries and counting.......

Click here for the new website for functional skills support from National Strategies and LSIS

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We're up for an award

I must admit that I'm not great at entering awards - it always seems to take such a long time to put together something that's worthy of an entry. But I do manage it sometime and over the summer I was told about the Northern Marketing Awards as I'm a member of the Chartered Institute of Marketing.

So I entered Guroo in the product launch category, using the name Guroo Functional Skills Resources.

And we've been shortlisted - which is really nice, what's even better is the fact that we're up against some pretty big organisations such as the Great North Museum (a multi million pound launch if ever there was one) and Kingston Communications.

We find out next week more about this so lets wish Functional Skills Resources by Guroo good luck in the Northern Marketing Awards.

Test for practice

Link to functional skills resources.

Link to 14-19 news

Time to start learning again

I've had this blog for a couple of years now and I do my very best to keep it up to date, on the whole quite successfully. But today I'm in a training room learning more about blogs and boy, I didn't know how much I didn't know!

So instead of rambling on about Guroo, or functional skills resources, or maybe even 14-19 curriculum, I'm going to have to get much better at thinking about my blog audience and who reads it!

So that's a challenge for me - let's see how it goes from here on in.

You can't defend the undefendable

in this weeks TES, Angela O'Donoghue, Principla at SUndelrand City College says that it's unfair to run down the Skills for Life sganda.

She says that the College has trained thousanads through t's move on scheme which is essentially a re-branded Adult Lit & Num qualification. What she doesn't say is that there is very little training involved. I live in Sunderland, people are encouraged to simply take the test - it's no wonder that getting a qual does little to improve skills!

It's also a surprise to me that the City's colleges don't offer the more rigorous and demanding Diploma and Functional Skills, preferring to offer the much easier to pass route of SfL and BTEC. Why - a senior person told me it was all about pass rates. God forbid that the college decided to offer a course that employers demanded when it was as easy to go for the easy option.

I would ask that the College gets into the real world and takes its responsibilities to train and teach rather than get students past a test.

The Tipping point?

I've just seen something which represents a tipping point, the point at which something just starts to grow for no apparent reason.

I placed some guroo learning resources on TES Connect a while ago. For months, they were ignored until August, since then 27 requests for the resource, more than 1000 downloads and a 5 star rating.

And every week, we get more - another 5 genuine enquiries this week from potential customers.

I'd like to say I could work out why something like this happens, but I can't!

DCSF response from AoC who said functional skills were a bit too hard.

DCSF: The requirement to gain functional skills qualifications is one of the strengths of the Diploma. It is clear that young people need these skills in order to be able to operate in the workforce and employers are demanding them. We have to ensure that young people get every opportunity to develop and demonstrate these skills.

In order to meet the aim set out in the 14-19 Qualification Strategy of securing functional skills across all the qualification routes we are pursuing strategies to ensure that, for all young people, functional skills are achieved at the same level as the main programme of study for all young people, functional skills are achieved at the same level the main programme of study. This includes looking further at GCSE and ensuring the Report Card incentivises attainment by all.

All schools will be teaching functional skills from September 2010 when it is incorporated into the KS4 curriculum. We recognise that FS requires a different approach to teaching and learning to bring about the changes necessary for success in the qualifications and that is why we are providing extra support to schools and colleges to help them bring about this change.

Too easy or too hard?

The national press have picked up on a story from the AoC saying Diplomas are too hard and only for the brightest of students with good prior attainment.

Please correct me if I'm wrong, but isn't that supposed to be the case. Functional Skills (the prior attainment that is being discussed) isn't a gimme qualification. It's demanding, rigorous and it means students and teachers have to work on the skills, not on passing tests.

What really gets me is that the Daily Mail has also jumped on the story - the same Daily Mail that runs stories saying that exams are too easy!

And of course Diplomas come in three sizes at level 1, 2, and 3 but this seems to have been missed. I'm quite pleased really, lets have more of this "its a worthwhile qualification" story.

Opportunities

Here's an interesting question. What is the best complementary product or service to Functional Skills?

I ask that because yesterday, we took a call from one of our customers and they were using the ESOL materials with some of the students - and that's the first time I've connected the two together.

I'm also thinking about this because the Guroo business has a great asset in a well informed sales team and extending our service and product offer is a small step ......

Suggestions welcomed.

What is real life Maths?

Something in the TES this week caught my eye about this, the same can be applied to English.

What is real life, what is theory?

Is poetry really English, does it really applt tyo post 14 year olds. What about Algebra or Geomtery.

Personally i think it all misses the point. Teaching for today is both short term and fairly irrelevant when today's students are about to enter the workforce for 40 years. Surely we should be teaching that staying ahead of the game in any subject is as important?

And that means having a degree of background and theoretical knowledge (in my view).

1 million unemployed youngsters

As the "owner" of a 16 and 20 year old and the uncle of another 16 and 20 year old, it's a pretty poor time to be 16 or 20 at the moment.

They have all worked hard at getting a future together, 1 in an apprenticeship, 1 in a job, 2 in education and all of them managed to get part time jobs.

But it's a worrying time for many and GMTV today talked about the lost generation.

And for many parents, they will have seen this before, it wasn't dissimilar when I was the same age in the early 80's - high unemployment, the old industries dying, high interest rates and inflation.

Colleges recruiting at age 14?

I personally think this is a pretty good idea.

There is, and always will be, a group of students who hate school. And as the age of schooling increases, this problem will only get worse so NEETs aren't going to go away.

Colleges can be part of a solution, more engaging, interesting and "adult", helping some of students who otherwise would become the next set of NEETs.

It isn't right for everyone, but I'm sure it can work for some to make it worthwhile.

Vocational Schools - old or new thinking

An idea from the Tories and worth considering.

Vocational schools.

It could be revolutionary offering a rich practical curriculum or it could be .....

Less is more?

So this week started with Ed Balls saying £2bn needed to be saved from education budgets.

It ended with Gordon Brown saying that education spending would be ring fenced and would not be cut!

Spending doom and gloom

Spending cuts are very much in the news at the moment with current Government and possible Government ministers seemingly falling over themselves to show how much can be cut without making any difference.

I remember the early 90's when ICT was becoming more and more popular in schools at the same time as tight spending controls meant that much less money was in the public sector.

It didn't stop investment, spending money on the right things will always be top of any priority list, the issue is spending money on the wrong things and it's this that gets cut when spending is drawn in.

UKCES Skills analysis

Published this week is an analysis of how the UK compares to the OECD international community on skills.

The bottom line is that at lower and intermediate levels, the UK has a big problem and its getting worse as the rest of the world improves their skills at a faster rate that the UK does.

Even worse, fixing this takes a long time, it can't be fixed solely at school or college, in 10 years time, 80% of the workforce are already in employment now!

I don't have any magic bullets, but it is a problem that we all can help in fixing by up skilling everyone. To get into the top 10 of countries, 50% of today's will have to gain a higher level qualification in the next 10 years - that's a lot!

Dame Tanni Greay Thomson

Nothing to do with functional skills at all this post. Just to show how inclusive the Great North Run is, I was struggling up to the water stop at 9 miles in what felt like 35 degrees of blazing sunshine (in reality it was just a nice day).

Now I always pick the water up at the end of the queue because there are less queues there and I had to double take as I was handed my bottle by Dame Tanni-Grey Thomson.

Now retired from racing she was just along to help out!

Dull and uninspiring exam text books

Another example in the school of "I bet you didn't know that you knew this already" thinking.

Exam boards that encourage their chief examiners to write a book about the subject end up with an uninspiring and dull book that is designed to get teachers to teach solely to the test.

Further that having a chief examiner write a book can be seen as anti-competitive and a possible restraint of trade - strong stuff indeed.

We collectively need to make sure that Functional Skills does not end up like this. Certainly the learning materials that we produce at Guroo try to avoid this trap,

exelearning

I've been playing with exelearning as part a project to turn all of the guroo functional skills learning content into scorm packages.

It seems to work quite well, very clunky if you are editing long sets of questions, but it's useable and quite functional.

The next stage for me is Moodle!

D DAY

Diploma Day that is - it was even announced straight aftyer Johnnie Walker crashed the pips at 8am this morning.

Estimates suggest 35000 new studnets start this morning plus 10000 still doing them from last year.

Universities do as they said they would

Diplomas seen as excellent preparation for higher education - DCSF new report 24/8/09

The research, published today (24.08.09) by the National Foundation for Educational Research, found that all universities questioned would welcome applications from the first Diploma cohort in 2010.

The NFER report also found that:

• Russell Group universities (20 major research-intensive universities) are strongly supportive of the breadth of learning and range of skills that Diploma students develop.
• University Vice Chancellors are confident that Diplomas will deliver the qualities they want in undergraduate students: flexible, independent working and experience of a work placement.
• Universities are enthusiastic about the Extended Project – a crucial component of the Diploma – and felt it developed the learning skills universities look for: critical thinking; analysis; and research skills.
• Universities welcome the opportunity to widen participation to higher education, commenting that Diplomas will bring new types of student and new styles of learning into higher education

Diploma success means early focus on on FS and Secondary Learning

Report recently on the BBC has suggested that whilst there is a big temptation in diploma teaching to go for it in terms of Primary Learning and teaching, students do better where the school or college has focused early attention on functional skills and secondary learning.

I guess it's another form of getting the basics right and if you think about logically, it pretty much stands to reason. Students more confident and competent in English, maths and ICT are going to do much better in their chosen principal line of learning.

There is lots to learn about the best ways to teach a diploma, but so far, most of it seems just plain sensible!

Functuional Skills the key to GCSE success?

Hidden away in the TES this week a small piece that could be very significant.

An LA tracked a 10% improvement in the numbers achieving 5+A*-C GCSE amongst students who had college vocational courses as part of their curriculum. ie the Diploma!

Now I think that's pretty important and it supports what many think - young people like the diploma and if you like something, chances are you do well.

NEET

NEET
Rightly, a lot of attention to the ever increasing and if I may personally add, embarassing problem of NEETs. I've written before about the lost generation, I was a child of the 60's, looking for my first job in the mid 80's when jobs were rarer than soberly dressed young ladies having a glass of Perrier in the Newcastle Bigg Market on a Friday night.

A few of my friends became NEETs, it is very easy to slip over the borderline. All it takes is a lost job, a gap in getting another one and that's it, a young person with no money, no education and no prospects. And I don't think that leaving it a year before action is taken is at all acceptable. The best time to deal with a problem is when the problem occurs, not a year later.

I don't have a solution, but I do know that it is the biggest problem in education at the moment and it would be top of my priority list.

Michael gove on Sunday AM

Michael Gove was on Sunday AM putting forward theories about education - especially performance tables. The basis of it all was that some A levels and GCSE were harder than others so they should carry more weight in assessing how well a student or school did. Absolutely true that some Universities discount certain "soft A levels" and it's true that you are unlikely to get into Durham University with A levels in Media Studies, Photography and Business Studies but how do you differentiate at the performance table level - that's a tough one to manage and a recipe for a great discussion about the merits of Maths over English Literature!

his second point was that the raw 5+A*-C GCSE pass tables were not representative as they allowed too much focus on C/D borderline and not enough on "good" and "poor" academic ability students. Again, we know this happens but we already have the value added measure and points measures and so on. The difficulty is coming up with something that is understandable and acceptable to the general public.

Good ideas, but not that much which is new?

"I will help my pupils maximise their coursework marks"

I think we all know this goes on and a piece in the TES is quoting teachers.

"I will help my pupils maximise their coursework marks just as I often rote teach to get them through exam questions. This is not cheating"

I agree entirely, it isn't cheating, but it isn't learning either. If the QCDA is brave enough to follow through on the principles of Functional Skills,

doing FS will mean this stops and the focus goes back to learning.

Jonathan

Quangos

I love the report in the papers today syaing that quangos in education should be abolished.

The QCA (now the QCDA) costs £155m a year and has an instrusive nature!

TDA budget has increased from £230m to £777m in just 8 years (the majority of business would be happy with an increase in revenue like that)

Becta is not required by schools, neither is NCSL, 11 million, Teachers TV.

Revamp Ofsted, slim it down and take it back to its core provision along with P4S and others.

Results - savings of £633m and the final comment from the writers of the report the CPS (presumeably a quango) is that "it is not obvious what's been achieved for the money that's been spent"

Don't expect much will change though!

Summer weather

On holiday this week in Devon and up early to play golf to be met by howling gales and genuinely monsoon rain conditions.

I don't have enough clothes with me to go outside in this - the glorious British weather - I thought we were going to have a lovely summer!.

A week off!

My summer holidays are this week.

Any one who knows me will also know that for many years we've been going to an activities hotel in devon for a few days. No different this year either.

So a week of football, tennis, squash, golf, badminton, massages, great food, snooker, swimming and generally punishing my body as much as is possible in a period of 5 days.

Then it's back to building the content for guroo!

End of term - end of work?

Not likely.

We're pretty much at the end of term here and the phones have mainly stopped ringing but now the hard work starts.

I get four days off next week but on 3rd August we start a two week intensive content project. 6 people in the team, reviewing, improving, testing, trialing and generally getting all the new stuff ready to go. It's hard work but probably one of the most rewarding jobs of the year and when it starts to go live at the end of the month it makes it all worth while.

Another career door closed

A piece in the TES made me think today.

It was all about teachers having thr right level of qualification and basically the argument was that taechers should have at least a B at GCSE and certainly no worse than a 2;2 in their degree.

I sort of fail on both accounts, my O level grade in English was just a C and my degree in Pure Maths from 1984 is just a third.

According to the Government, this makes me too thick to be teacher. I don't really have a problem with that as I already have a career but what I do have a problem with is that this apparent focus applies to teachers, who on the whole "do good and add value" to our society whereas bankers don't need any form of qulaification at all and do the complete opposite.

Must be lovely to have a pair of politicians glasses that enable you to see the world with such clear vision!

Level 3 Functional Maths

This doesn't exist, the argument being is that if you can show that you are functional at level 2 then you are functional, you can't become more functional!

But listening to my favourite radio show this morning (Radio 2 Johnnie Walker standing in for Terry Wogan) Johhnnie mentioned that the new maths A level "Using Maths" was causing some consternation amongst the acadmeic community.

Too right, sounds like a level 3 functional maths qualification to me.

But then again, perhaps we could ask those people who are supposed to be numerate (bankers, those insurance people who tell me that I'm lucky not to have lost more money on my endowmment policy, politicians who apparently think that a cut in funding is actually an increase - I could go on) to do this real life A level in Maths?

Getting it right

Something I've noticed very clearly over the last few months (since about Easter I guess) is that confidence in what functional skills is, is increasing.

A year ago, 6 months ago even, we'd start every conversation by saying - "do you know what functional skills are?" then spend a few minutes explaining them before we ever talked about Guroo.

But that's changes, and it's a bit like a switch, the change has happened remarkably quickly and the balance is now in favour of knowledge about FS. Now we're being asked how we help!

Add to that the fact that Nov and Jan exam results were very much more respectable and indeed were higher than the equivalent GCSE then it's all starting to come together.

Ed Balls on GMTV

He looked to me like someone making a play for the big job!

DCFS Conference

I was fortunate enough to make the DCFS organised conference on 14-19 in early June.

Some key highlights that I noted .

An ask the audience straw poll at the beginning of the day:

How prepared do you feel about: Diplomas Functional Skills FLT

Very confident 8% 10% 11%

Quite confident 51% 45% 27%

Not that confident 31% 38% 43%

Not at all confident 10% 8% 19%

Targeting

Diplomas are badly targeted - By saying it's for everyone, the message that it's more right for some groups is sadly weakened. DCFS were encouraged to make it clear who the target students were.

Students love them

They like Functional Skills much more than GCSE. They like the practical aspects of the Diplomas. They like the fact they move around - although this is itself is a serious problem for organisations. Retention on the Diplomas is excellent.

Conflict at institution level

There are many many conflicts.

Students movement, difficult to teach, harder to pass, cultural differences between schools and colleges, competition for funding between institutions, scared to put students in who may fail.

One final point. They did make a lot of the fact that by having regional events, we could reduce our carbon footprint. But at the same time I counted a dozen support staff at each regional event - effectively three times the normal number required. Must have cost a fortune to put on and also cost a lot of CO2 putting all those extra people up in the Hilton each night.

Sorry for the break in service - back again now

A few things have conspired to stop me updating my blog.

I had a holiday!

Life at guroo is extremely busy

The www.functionalskills.org forum has been established and this has taken up a fair bit of time.

Back again now though.

Jonathan

Hard to engage kids

Yet another report this week highlighting the difference in achievement between those who have a hard start in life and those who don't.

Looked after children and those who move around a lot do so much more badly at school.  I've mentioned this before but there should be no reason why this is the case, but it is.

I do believe the tightly structured curriculum and the focus on teaching to the test means these groups of children suffer when it comes to exams.  

Lets just hope that the more practical curriculum that will come about with functional skills and, at least for these groups, the introduction of the Foundation Learning Tier will help them.  It's really about time we move away from focusing the majority of the best resources on the borderline and started to address the issues of learning rather than passing exams.   

Consistency is needed

The Government looks to be in trouble and that means there is likely to be some change.  It's a real shame because during this period of economic uncertainty, the role of education is of primary importance in providing not only a home for young people who can't find an alternative but opportunity for all those who find themselves out of a job.

Now really isn't the time to change Education Ministers again.  A new minister will want new top priority policies and will only have maybe 9 months to have an impact before parliament breaks up for the election.  In a company it wouldn't happen, it shouldn't in politics.  Education is more important than that!

The Magic Bullet?

I've been reading about magic bullets this week.  

• Feed kids the right food to make their brain work.
  
• Re-educate the way they think
  
• Keep repeating year 6 until they can read and write
  
• Have more assessments (and indeed other reports suggest less assessments).
  
• Introduce new performance tables, or do away with all performance tables.
  

Bottom line is there is no magic bullet but I do have a little story that I hope is both relevant and shows that things can change.  I have a good friend who fosters.  Their last charge was a teenager who was "off the rails", but just under a year later that very same person attends classes regularly, is succeeding in education, treats others with respect, and has a future.  

I wish I could say how or why they managed to make progress, but I can't, I suspect they can't can't say either.  Perhaps it's just the whole package together that's the basis of a magic bullet?

  

£300K a year job in DCFS?

There's a tender out at the moment  from Chief Adviser for School Standards.

Two experts contracting for up to 220 days to provide advice on English and Maths at primary.

Contract value is £600,000

Correct me if I'm wrong, does that mean two full time  jobs for 1 year that DCFS is willing to paya salary of £300,000?

If you're interested the email of the person managing the tender is hackman.ps@dcsf.gsi.gov.uk 

Good luck!

Foundation Learning Tier

I work across both schools and colleges and one of the things which I never really noticed is suddenly becoming much more apparent.

The Foundation Learning tier - I've been doing some research into this and I've really noticed that whilst it's something which is pretty well understood in colleges but i it's often a very new concept in schools.

Now the FLT is likely to have a very big impact on schools particularly with those hard to engage learners and it looks to me like there is a big hurdle waiting to be crossed out there.  Why mention this now - well i think it's only just starting to be talked about.

I shall keep an eye on it all.

 

Diploma promotional Materilas

I just picked up that every schools is about to receive a Diploma campaign pack  in the week commencing 1 June 2009. 

This pack will contain the following: an A4 folder; an A3 poster; 1 x  leaflet for each of the 14 Diploma lines of learning, Year 10 students, Year 12 students, employers and parents; 1 x  Advanced Diploma leaflet for each of the first 10 Diploma lines of learning; and a Marketing Toolkit CD-Rom.

Can't wait - wish they'd asked me to get involved though!

PM's speech

http://www.number10.gov.uk/Page19209

The link above is the Prime Minister's 5 May speech about education.  I will be honest and say that although I skim read it, i really didn't spot anything new, in the main it was all about confirmation of what was already announced.

A little follow on is that the PM was talking about a national challenge for primary schools, this morning on GM.TV Carole Vordermann was on talking about failing maths teaching in primary schools - coincidence?

Big News - The School Report Card

This is very big news if you're me and expecting Functional Skills to be the biggest thing since GCSE replaced O levels.

Remember that announcement on April 2nd by Jim Knight that the hurdle of passing functional skills was being removed from GCSE.  Also remember that I said the Government was determined to make this work.

Well, I write to DCFS and I have a response - let me quote

"Therefore schools will have to teach functional skills in order to maintain and improve their results"  OK we knew that but here's the rub for those who were thinking functional skills was being sidelined

"The Government will strongly encourage schools to give young people opportunities to enter and achieve free standing tests in functional skills.....These will be reflected in finalising the Report Card which will replace performance tables and any associated indicators......make sure that there is a strong incentive that reflects our view that it is valuable for young people to do functional skills as well as GCSE.

I'm pretty happy with that, as you can imagine!

Budgets and funding

this is a personal view only but i think that this year and next year will be fine for funding across the education sector.

Yes, there are some problems with new college buildings, BSF in schools is a tricky one to manage especially when it comes to ICT, but I don't think that schools and colleges need worry too much about losing money from teaching students or having un funded courses.

Education budgets are set in advance and I think it will be April 2011 before we see any changes to the commitments made.  This will be the first chance a potential new government has of changing things.  

At that point, there must a general tightening of budgets and i don't think education will escape this at all.

Budget funding

Seems like ages since I did a posting - been a busy old week at work!

Good to see that the funding issues surrounding increased numbers of students expected to take part on post-16 eductaion seemed to have been solved with extra funding annocuned in the budget.

Must admit that it was expected, but good to see it happening nevertheless.  Especially important for me as my youngest daughter will be in this group come September I hope.

LSC deciding on the answer before it asks the question

I've just had an immensely frustrating and unrewarding telephone interview from LSC.  It would take 10 minutes they said (it actually took an hour), it would inform the LSC on training requirements of small business (it didn't because there was nowhere to add what my requirements are) and it would influence skills development (it won't because the questions were loaded to protect the LSC).

Questions like .... Because of the recession, are you spending more or less on training   ... are loaded because whether you spend more or less on training is not as a result of the recession.

And then one has to ask why LSC are doing this, I suspect it's to justify an existence which is seriously under threat.  Perhaps they should be spending the money they have spent on this ridiculous survey on funding some post 16 education.

The Apprentice - functional maths got her!

Watched the apprentice last night - love this show!

Paula Jones - long wavy red hair - got fired.

Did they get the right one - they did becuase she simply couldn't estimate the numbers.  Confusing 3% with 3g cost the team about £700 and was the difference, all the difference, between winning and losing.  

Why comment about this becuase this is what Functional Mathematics is all about.  Being Functional means knowing when something feels wrong.  You don't have to be an expert and get it right every time, you do have to know when to check though and she didn't.  

It reminds me of the time when many years ago I was interviewing for a sales person and the person I interviewed was great, personable, bright, good presentation but she did a numeracy test and was so awful it was impossible to believe.  So back to the interview and simple questions like what's 10% discount on a £20,000 order showed no understanding about numbers.  She didn't get the job - having no confidence with simple numbers can only ever be a disaster waiting to happen.

Scare stories from LSC

Easter brings the conference season and the end of the Government Financial Year together so suddenly we see lots reports and press activity which all seem to be bringing forward scare stories such as

LSC promises things it then can't deliver

Diplomas dropped because the LSC has run out of money

No space or money for sixth formers

I think that at the moment, I'm treating all these things as scare stories.  Many are forced on us because the LSC has to do something by 31st March when in reality it is nowhere near having the numbers on which to base things.Or the Government announcing 50,000 students on diplomas when clearly that's just an estimate.  

Lets just wait a week or two and see what happens after the next bank holiday in May before jumping to conclusions.

Responses from the announcement last week

These are a selection of quotes from the responses to the change to de-link Functional Skills from GCSE

does this mean i have to enter pupils for the ict functional skills, 

is it now just an extra and we don't if we wish not to have to enter pupils at all even in 2010 Louise

I think that the latest announcement will be the kiss of death for functional skills and will totally vindicate those Headteachers who have been sitting on the fence with the whole 14-19 agenda because they think that ‘it will all go away’! 

…. The point regarding the report card is pertinent as it will very much depend on how this is structured  ……

….. Ten years or so ago when Key Skills were introduced in Further Education, the rationale for their introduction was that employers when employing school leavers discovered a severe lack of basic skills, especially with numeracy, literacy and IT. When attending the first Functional Skills seminar six months ago, exactly the same words were used to explain the introduction of Functional Skills; presumably the last ten years has been a complete waste of time. It never ceases to amaze me that after eleven years in compulsory education and not grasping the basics; yet when they arrive in Further Education, “vocational” tutors are somehow expected to overcome all barriers and “cure” them of this unfortunate malady and in one or two years. Is it any wonder that that national success rates for Key Skills are so poor? 

So does this mean that the results of the whatsit report (the one from 2004 that found that passing GCSEs was too easy and that learners could effectively guess their way through it and pass with out the requisite skills) have now been kicked into the long grass for another year?  What does that say for the skills base of our workforce and the economic future of this country, especially in these hard times? Another influx of suitably skilled foreign workers? :-( !

Jim Knight - good to see that Mr M'Choakumchild has been thwarted in his gradgrindian ambitions

 ....  The Govt hasn’t yet got its act together on FS and is sending out confused messages. ...

Thanks for the update – extremely useful.

Changes to GCSE Accreditation from 2010

Most of you have by now read the announcement today that Functional Skills will no longer be tied to GCSE passes. (http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/education/7979267.stm )

 Now, as the market leader in Functional Skills resources, you’d probable think this is a bit of bad news for Guroo – and I must admit that it has caused us to re-read the internal and external documents several times!

 In summary

1)      The government is still committed to FS

2)      They have accepted the OfQual advice “for now”

3)      They are going to find other incentives that will encourage FS as a separate qualification – including tying it to the new School Report Card

 The reason this decision was made was not because of a problem with FS, but because the new GCSE curriculum could not be signed off and released until the issues surrounding the FS “hurdle” in England, when you don’t need it to get a GCSE in Wales, etc got resolved. That wasn’t going to happen quickly and they couldn’t hold up the new curriculum spec being released.

 The result is that it might not actually change very much – as there is still going to be strong pressure on schools to ensure that every pupil can demonstrate their functionality – and this is indeed written into those new GCSE specs which means that FS will simply be part of the GCSE rather than a separate “hurdle”. 

Diplomas continue to be a major driver for FS adoption as will the Foundation Learning Tier, indeed the FLT could be a very big influence indeed as students on the FLT are not expected to be getting grade C+ at GCSE.

 And most importantly of all FS is a good stand-alone qualification (without GCSEs or Diplomas as a driver).   There is going to be tons of pressure on schools to do FS as a separate subject and there’s support from many sides (inc CBI etc) to say that they will be looking for FS passes as a measure of functionality in addition to GCSE passes.

So maybe the message from the top changes from  “Functional Skills will be a must-pass element of GCSEs from 2010” to “Functional Skills are built into the new GCSE specs from 2010”.

Uplifting days

Yesterday I spent a day out with Stewart (co director at guroo) listening to Dave Anderson.  Dave is an American "Business Guru" which could have been a bit of a worry, but boy did he speak well.

I didn't agree 100% with everything but there was so much he did say that is useful and realistic.  Why comment in this blog - because every now and again, it's really good to take a day, take stock, re-group and plan for the next period of change.

And that's exactly what we're doing - after an extraordinary March where we doubled our custoemr base in a single month, we are now planning over easter for the next term where the vision will centre on our products.

And to cap it all, I also got home at a reasonable time and went out with Mrs Wells and the dog for an hour in the evening sunshine - what a good day all round.

Employability Skills

It's a one of those "duh" moments.

Piece in the TES saying that Colleges should teach employability skills such as time keeping, dress codes and working in a team.

Let me just re-iterate that once a student has passed the basic qualification bar, enthusiasm and attitude are what employers seek and that isn't very different from those employability skills.

Past Papers from AQA?

Here's an absoute stunner for all of us who spend our lives thinking and working in Functional Skills.

QCA insist that testing in Functional Skills "WILL NOT BE MULTIPLE CHOICE"

AQA on 4th March 09 update their web site and the latest speciman (note the term) is certainly not that but everything referred to as a past paper is multiple choice!  Even worse, the latest specimen papers are at the bottom of the screen and need a scroll down to be seen.

Just let me climb up onto my soap box here and then tell the AQA to get their act together. Leaving past papers on your site based on multiple choice quiestions confuses the bigger issue and does no-one - particularly the teachers - any favours at all.

The majority of teachers that I talk to relish the chance to do some proper teaching in Functional Skills and welcome the fact the the move away from exam factory is to be celebrated!

This made me smile

Something in the Evening Chronicle made me smile today.

A Newcastle United fan who ran onto the pitch after Cisse scored for Sunderland and subsequently begged to be barred from the ground has instead been told he has to keep going!

His lawyer said her client’s outburst and actions happened because of the Magpies’ plight.  And in what I think is a very funny quote said

“I don’t know very much about football but I understand he isn’t alone in that feeling at the moment"

I guess you would therefore say that being made to go is more of  a punishment that being kept away!

Shocking stats - one quarter of one percent!

The Daily Mail does have a history of stirring up "Middle England" and this isn't the sort of story that I would expect them to run normally but it is relevant and pretty shocking.

Of the 75,000 children on free school meals each year, just 189 of them went onto get 3 A levels at grade A.  That is one quarter of 1%.  OK, Daily Mail style meant they compared this with the 67% at a top indepdndent school that got 3 A grades but in my view the real story is the shocking statistic of one quarter of one percent.

"The system fails children from poorer backgrounds" - a very fair quote I would say given the results.  

 

The Game Show Quiz

I had the priveldge of being asked to do a little session at the naace conference this week - naturally it was about Functional Skills.

The issue was how do I come up with something that isn't powerpoint, that doesn't overtly mention Guroo but is informative and entertaining.

The solution was provided by Stewart, my co-director who came up with the quiz show format and Vicki who produced an amazing set of Smart Board resources to use.  And it worked, in fact it worked so well that we've had requests to repeat it which we're happy to do so long as we can fit it in neatly and the audience is right.

So if you want to know a bit more about Functional Skills and you like things like Boockbusters, and Family Fortunes - you know where to find us.

Teachers lack of awareness

We're used to some negative reporting about the Diplomas and indeed, my contention remains that they are badly positioned by the Government and QCA.

What's really worrying about the Ofsted survey is the lack of awareness by teachers has not moved forward at all during a whole year.  Surely, this must tell someone something about positioning.  

Apprenticeships - Big News

Big news aren't they?

Our local paper this morning (The Newcastle Journal) carries an 8 page pull out of LSC sponsored stories about Apprenticeships.

Lots of case studies, Suralan was in their as well.

I liked it a lot and it clearly positions this qualification and as it appeared in the business section of the paper it's targetted at the employers so push and pull marketing.

Would be nice to do the same for Diplomas - I still worry they are misunderstood.

Primary School Curriculum

Lots of reports this morning about the "focus on testing" to the detriment of a broader education.

Who else detects a strong "back to basics" move here.  It started with Functional Skills, has continued into the 14-19 curriculum, the dropping of KS3 tests and now Primary schools.

I sense that we are moving away from assessment back to teaching in the wider sense.  less focus on schemes of work and ticking boxes, more on helping young people understand the world - I hesitate to say this a little as it's more than 30 years since I left school, but it is a little like what happened when I was at school and it was the teachers who decided what you'd be taught rather than a form.

A quiz for you

How much extra money does the average Diploma studnets earn for the institution?

Which Diploma has the most additional grant money?

Answers in a few days!

That sounds like a good idea

This may be a controversial statement, but I am certain that it is true.  Schools focus on borderline students giving them extra resources which by definition is to the detriment of low (and indeed high) achievers becuase it's the borderline student that gets a C rather than D that makes a big difference to the league table positions.

The TES says this week that the Lib Dems would replace league tables based on 5+A*-C passes with an average points system.  Now without making any pol;itical statement, that sounds like quite a good idea to me - it would mean that increasing the students from a G to an F counts the same as D to C and A to A*.

Jonathan

BTW - The just giving gadget is for my daughter Abigail

She's doing the race for life so if you can support her, then feel free.

Confusing Diplomas Part 2

There's a big push on Apprentices going on. I've seen the TV ad with "SURALAN" and today we had a visitor at out offices from a training provider telling us how easy it is to get a modern apprentice for the office and it only costs something like £16 a day or was that a week - can't remember.

Now I'm quite a big believer in workplace experience, I did a sandwich course and it meant that when I graduated I started work the next day because of that experience.

But from a professional marketing point of view I'm still really worried about mixed messages and the Apprentice ads following the Diploma ads so closely.

The older generation (I count myself in there) are still the gateway to employment and I do believe that this generation definitely knows about A levels, certainly knows about apprenticeships and still is finding it difficult to categorise Diplomas and by categorise, I mean build a perception with the employers.

They should ask me to help them!

Confusing the Diploma

For those of us who have been involved with the Diploma from the outset, the comments in the Daily Mail about how the Diploma is positioned in the minds of the students is no surprise.

in brief it says that students start the Diploma and then find out it's different to what was expected.  Many institutions are not promoting it all that well (Newcastle College don't even mention it in their prospectus sent to Y11) and parents don't know whether it's academic or vocational.

A plea to those leading the marketing - get off the fence and say who the diploma is aimed at please.  If it is vocational say so but please don't presented it's something it isn't!

Lots of Press about Skills for Life

Now, we know that  Functional Skills will be Incorporated into the Foundation Learning tier which is expected to replace existing basic Skills/Skills for Life provision.  precise details are not yet published but I thought it was very interesting that there was masses of coverage about the progress that Skills for Life had made in 5 years.

Some good, some bad.  

I may have a very slightly wary attitude of political announcements, but I get the feeling that the press coverage yesterday is the forerunner of the FLT changes.

You heard it here first!

Diploma now uber trendy

How do I know that?  Well, my daughters are teenagers and as such they know their TV programmes.  Hollyoaks around tea time, Lost when it returns but above all Skins which is definitely post watershed viewing.

And the new series returned last night and guess what - the characters are preparing to start the Hair and Beauty Diploma at College - so there you go - the diploma has made cutting edge TV drama!

Just thought you'd like to know - I suspect this mention will be more important than all the DCSF Youtube videos they could ever possibly put up!

jonathan