Monday 23 May 2011

May 24th - the Functional Skills newsletter

May 24th - the Functional Skills newsletter

The last newsletter of this half term sees us covering the Government's response to Wolf specifically relating to Functional Skills, the power of Twitter, the opportunity to become an affiliate of MyGuroo (Functional Skills revision resources for the independent learner) and links to free Functional Skills resources on the web.

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Government response to the Wolf report (Functional Skills)

Since the Government's response was published in full, we've been through the report and picked out all of the comments and recommendations related to Functional Skills.

  • Causes of failure include young people doing adult qualifications and students without a solid grounding in the basics being allowed to drop English and maths.
  • For those who do not achieve GCSE by age 16, introducte English and maths qualifications that provide significant progress towards future GCSE success. These qualifications to be included in the performance tables.
  • Reform GCSE to ensure they are a reliable indicator of achievement in the basics and how spelling, punctuation and grammar can be strengthened in GCSEs.
  • Including performance measures that capture the full range of outcomes for pupils including the variation in performance of low and high attaining pupils.
  • Publish a review of Foundation Learning in the summer
  • Publish a review of teaching the most disengaged by December 2011
  • Review funding to ensure Level 2 English and maths is fully funded until 19-24 year olds have achieved passes in both.
  • Focus funding and performance measures on core areas of English and maths and on employment outcomes rather than the accrural of qualifications.
  • Functional Skills and GCSE will be the ONLY recognised pathways to achieving an Apprenticeship with Key Skills being phased out as the Government accepts that Key Skills are not considered a suitable qualification.
  • Consultation on English and maths qualifications for 16-18 year olds to be held in the summer and autumn.

If you're interested in following the wider aspects of the review of vocational learning, we'd recommend joining the facebook group the Big Vocational Debate

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Become an affiliate of MyGuroo - Functional Skills revision resources for the independent learner

This will appeal to trainers, consultants, advisers, writers, speakers, personal tutors and indeed those involved in supporting independent learners of Functional Skills.

With the launch of www.MyGuroo.co.uk an affiliate programme has also been launched. To become an affiliate is really very straightforward, it's free to join and potentially very rewarding! Simply follow the three easy steps by signing up for a free account in MyGuroo then choosing to become an affiliate or click the image below.

Once registered, you'll be given a referrer code to use and the free tools make it easy to link your sites to MyGuroo. If you'd like to have a chat about being an affiliate - just call Jonathan or Stewart on 0191 305 5045.

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www.myguroo.co.uk functional skills resources for the independent learner

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The Power of Twitter

We've been following various tags on Twitter for a little while, including #functionalskills and #guroofs and where we can help a little, we do.

With all the exams of the last couple of weeks, things really seemed to get quote busy and at one point, we spotted all these tweets on our "Tweetdeck".

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You too can follow us - GurooFS and jwellsatguroo are the names you need.

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Links to Functional Skills resources

It's easy to search TES, Education.gov.uk or Promethean Planet but did you also know about these? All the links below will take you to (normally free) Functional Skills resources on the web:

Skillsworkshop features a wide collection of Functional Skills resources. Run by Maggie Harnew of Abingdon College and funded by an LSIS STAR award
Guroo always have several complete challenges available and free to use
Axis Education has a number of free to download worksheets
Functional Skills Support Programme and Excellence Gateway which have publicly funded resources from the pilot phase.

Functionalskills4u.com - A private website "not connected with any government organisations or examination boards. Its content has not been checked and you use it at your own risk. It has been created for students to use."

Fun Resources who operate from a PO Box with no other contact details

ICT Functional Skills from North West Learning Grid

Many of these sites will accept and share any Functional Skills resources you have developed. If you have created resources that could potentially be further developed into a full "Guroo Challenge" then we'd like to hear from you too ;-)

Thursday 12 May 2011

Monday 9 May 2011

May 10th Functional Skills newsletter


May 10th - the functional skills newsletter

Loads of press coverage this week about Professor Wolf at the Education Select Committee and the CBI/EDI Education and Skills survey - whilst separate, both have similar conclusions and most press coverage links them - we have links to all main press coverage and to the report itself. Solving the revision and practice needs of the Independent Learner has just got a lot easier with the launch of MyGuroo, and you can help MyGuroo win a major business prize plus we have technical news from the Awarding Bodies including grade boundaries and FS timetables.

English and maths skills at the heart of education news

It's been an incredibly busy press week driven by Prof Alison Wolf's and Schools Minister Nick Gibb's appearance at the Education Select committee and the CBI/EDI Education and Skills survey 2011.

The focus of Wolf remains English and maths, supported very much by the CBI very concerned about standards of literacy and numeracy with continuing calls for substantial improvements - 42% of employers surveyed and unhappy with literacy standards and 35% with maths skills. “Because the basic skills levels of school and college leavers are often insufficient, many employers have to redirect their resources to provide remedial training to get these areas up-to-scratch." Here's a selection of reports.

Daily Mail - half of firms give remedial courses in 3Rs

Telegraph - students to study English and maths up to 18

Guardian - CBI criticise schools over inadequate literacy and numeracy

BBC - school leavers lack basic skills

We expect to see the Government's response to the Wolf report before the next newsletter in two weeks time - three questions are at the top of our agenda:

  • Will GCSE English and maths for the basis of all post 16 learning or will Functional Skills become the post 16 qualification of choice?
  • Will the Government change the name of Functional Skills?
  • Will the extension for Key Skills in Apprenticeships be withdrawn?

Functional Skills revision and practice for the independent learner

Up until now, all support services and resources have been aimed at the teacher or indeed at the school/college. That has left hundreds of thousands of learners who either aren't lucky enough to go to an institution who have invested in resources or who are studying independently without access to good revision and practice resources and support.

In a major development, www.myguroo.co.uk launches a new service aimed directly at the independent learner with a series of courses initially offered at level 1 and level 2 across all three subjects and with prices starting at just £9.99 for the "cram4exam" access period. Licencing covers individual students and those supporting them such as personal tutors and parents.

News from the Awarding Bodies

Edexcel have published Grade Boundaries for the latest set of Functional Skills assessments at Level 1 and Level 2. Full details are here.

C&G have published a full timetable of Functional Skills roll-out over the next 12 months including the availbility of on-screen assessments.

NCFE have released Functional ICT level 1 and level 2. More here.

EDI extend their support materials for Functional Skills.

The Skillsfirst Functional Skills calendar with assessment windows is available here.


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Please help MyGuroo win £50,000 and Take That Lynn!

Your help is required. MyGuroo (Functional Skills revision and practice for the Independent learner) needs your support to win £50,000 from Barclays. Please take a moment to click here to support our bid and add your comment.

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!

Please follow us on Twitter @guroofs and like us on Facebook at guroo.functionalskills. The next newsletter is likely to be Tuesday May 24th - if you have anything you'd like us to know about, just get in touch jwells@guroo.co.uk



Government close to accepting some Wolf recommendations

The papers have seen quite a lot of noise this morning about the Government being close to accepting the main English and Maths recommendations of the Wolf report.

Whilst the reports do not mention Functional Skills specifically, a key part of the Wolf report was that students aged 16+ would continue their Maths and English education until they left school or college or had passed GCSE at grade C or above. What we are waiting to see is how the Government will respond - will they make everyone do GCSE or will functional Skills become a key plank in the strategy of improving skills - also reported by the CBI today.

Links

Still no public statements from ALP about Key Skills being a part of Apprentice programmes though - maybe the journalists should be asking ALP why this is the case?

Tuesday 3 May 2011

Lies, damn lies and statistics

I have absolutely no idea why everyone seems surprised by the revelation that education organisations focus the majority of their resources on hitting the targets against which they are measured.
If you say you will judge someone against a measure, they will focus on this measure, until you change the measure and they will focus on the new measure. That's why when the Government says that the Ebacc is not an accountability measure, just something they look at as part of a basket of measures, don't believe them!
What happened to the School Report Card that was talked about just a year or two ago which had a range of measures that were focussed on all areas of the achievement spectrum including Functional Skills - perhaps this should be re-visited?