Wednesday 30 January 2013

Stand picture

Here's a picture of the best turned out 3m stand you'll ever see!

Guroo Functional Skills at the Learning and Skills show, stand 213.

Learning and Skills Exhibition

A first for me, not at BETT as it clashes with a much more important show for Guroo - the Learning and Skills/Learning Technologies show in London.  We could have done both with some pain, but in the end decided not to.

Our key markets at Guroo Functional Skills are training providers, the larger companies that run their own apprenticeship programmes and the FE sector.  All three are well represented here, but BETT is more schools orientated (and much more expensive).

And because keeping our price very competitive is hugely important, we've decided to save the £20,000 we could have spent at BETT and instead develop more of the Functional maths and Functional English tutorial videos that have been going down so well with out customers.

So no blog reports from me this year. although I can report a very successful show for Guroo, just not BETT.

Monday 21 January 2013

Functional Skills newsletter Jan 22nd, Traineeships, Maths, Moodle, Events and Webinars


January 22nd - the Functional Skills newsletter
Traineeships were perhaps the most significant announcement by the Government of the last couple of weeks and we summarise their potential impact on Functional Skills. We also have a very interesting summary of the Education Ministers speech about Maths - it's remarkable how her comments are so close to the fundamental aspects of Functional Maths.
Many of customers know that Guroo is based on a Moodle platform so we've added a link to Moodlerooms.  We also have a brief reminder about events and finally this week, the webinar is all about the brand new reports in Guroo including Progression reports, something which I know lots of people have requested.
As always, your comments and thoughts are appreciated - let us know what you'd like us to cover in the newsletter by emailing the editor - jwells@guroo.co.uk
Traineeships - the details
It looks very likely that these will be introduced in September. Announced last week by the Government Minister, Traineeships are for 16-19 year olds who are not otherwise in full time education, or paid training such as apprenticeships.

They include three core elements: 
  • Functional Skills - Maths and English - where the young person has not already achieved grade C at GCSE
  • Intensive work training and/or work placement
  • Other support such as vocational qualifications adapted to the needs of the individual.
FE Week carried full details of the Traineeship proposals, so click here for a report of the Ministers speech and here for details of the proposals.
Minister’s speech about Maths
In the same week as the announcement from BIS about Traineeships, we also had the DFE Minister talking about Maths.  A full transcript of Elizabeth Truss speech is available here and it is remarkable how many of the ideas are similar to those that underpin Functional Maths.  For example:
"And, crucially, we are putting arithmetic, numbers, fractions, decimals and percentages at the heart of our new curriculum.  These essential skills are the bedrock of the subject, vital for almost every higher-level specialism and essential if children are to feel confident and capable ..."
"A vital part of that mastery is practice.  The truth is that high-quality, productive practice is essential in learning any skill .... So pupils need plenty of opportunities to practise a technique in a wide variety of contexts, working through increasingly demanding problems on their own and with a teacher."
"All the evidence from international tests and league tables suggests that high performing countries put core academic subjects at the centre of their curriculum for longer than we do in this country. Nowhere is this more striking than in 16-18 maths.  Last year we announced that maths will be compulsory for students up to the age of 19 who have not achieved a C at GCSE ? a decision supported by this week?s Nuffield report."
Better Moodle Experiences
Many readers will know we?re big Moodle fans at Guroo, with all the initial assessment, diagnostic and resources content at www.guroo.co.uk and the on-line level checker www.myfunctionalskills.co.uk being delivered on Moodle that has been adapted by our technical team.
We also know that many folks out there use Moodle to deliver online components of their courses ? and that it isn?t easy to keep Moodle running reliably, to make it look the way you want it to, make it work on mobile devices, mark work efficiently, and more.
So if you?d like to get the best bits of open source Moodle but would also like better branding, interfaces and course structures, better reporting, marking, personalised and differentiated learning ? and would like it all to ?just work?, then you should maybe take a look at Joule from Moodlerooms:
?Joule is an online learning platform based on Moodle that makes it easy to manage courses and deliver engaging content and activities to learners, anytime, anyplace. Joule is here to help you save time and effort and help you meet your learning goals, one lesson at a time.? 
Like Guroo, Moodlerooms will be at Learning Technologies later this month  ? click here for more.
Event Reminders
Implementing Functional Skills in Birmingham is on this Friday and is targeted at Functional Skills practitioners and managers and featuring presentations and workshops by experts in Functional Skills.  The event also has all the leading resource providers in attendance led by Guroo.
Guroo will attend Learning and Skills show next Tuesday and Wednesday at Olympia in London on stand 213.  It's relevant to the vast majority of our customers in the FE, Adult Learning and Workplace Learning markets.  Because of the clash of dates with the Learning and Skills show, Guroo will not be at BETT this year.
Wednesday Webinar at 4.00pm
Guroo has been growing recently and this week we have launched a series of new reports and admin developments.  It's been a while since the Guroo support team had the chance of doing a webinar, so this week Andy and Simon will be taking you through all the recent new additions.  As always we find that many more people enjoy coming back for the recording afterwards, but if you'd like to be live, just drop an email to info@guroo.co.uk  
Join us on Wednesday at 4pm.
All previous webinars are recorded and available anytime for playback - login as a guest and the password is password.  Simply click on the links below and don?t forget, if you?d like to have your own 1:1 webinar looking at how Guroo can help you support Functional Skills, just call us on 0191 305 5045 or email info@guroo.co.uk and we?ll take it from there.
Guroo group and user admin

Thursday 10 January 2013

Traineeships to include Maths and English

Announced today by the Government Minister, Traineeships are for 16-19 year olds who are not otherwise in full time education, or paid training such as apprenticeships.

They include Functional Skills - Maths and English - where the young person has not already achieved grade C at GCSE, intensive work training and work placement and other support such as vocational qualifications adapted to the needs of the individual.

Naturally, Guroo welcomes this valuable new route towards improving standards in Functional Maths and Functional English.

Jonathan Wells

Monday 7 January 2013

Functional Skills newsletter Jan 8th - Events, Ofsted, Progression and Webinars


January 8th - the Functional Skills newsletter
A very happy new year to all our thousands of readers.
January is conference and exhibition season and we have news of two events - Implementing Functional Skills on Friday 25th January in Birmingham and the Learning and Skills show on 29/30 at Olympia in London.
We also have news of an Ofsted Review of Apprenticeships that makes slightly worrying reading, news about Progression Qualifications from OCR (we like to call them "little bits of Functional Skills") and details of tomorrow's webinar that will be all about Teaching Functional Maths and will be centred on Guroo's new tutorial videos.
As always, your comments and thoughts are appreciated - let us know what you'd like us to cover in the newsletter by emailing the editor - jwells@guroo.co.uk

Event Reminder (1) Implementing Functional Skills
When: Friday 25th January 
Where: Paragon Hotel, Birmingham
Cost: £99
Organised by EMSkills and supported by (amongst others) Guroo, IQ, Runway Training, West Notts College, Forskills, Nelson Thornes, Tribal and CIA Training.
Targeted at Functional Skills practitioners and managers and featuring presentations and workshops by experts in Functional Skills.  The event also has all the leading resource providers in attendance so you can compare offers from Guroo, BKSB, Forskills and Tribal.

Event Reminder (2) Learning and Skills Show
When: Tuesday 29th and Wednesday 30th January 
Where: Olympia, London
Cost: Free to attend exhibition, various optional workshops and conference options
Attended by the leading providers of resources in Functional Skills including Guroo (stand 231) Tribal (stand 268).
The BETT show is also on at the same time and because of the clash of dates, Guroo have chosen to attend Learning and Skills show which is much more relevant to the vast majority of our customers in the FE, Adult Learning and Workplace Learning markets rather than the primary and secondary school focussed BETT show.  So if you go to BETT and can't find Guroo, don't worry, we haven't gone away, just gone somewhere else!

Ofsted review of Apprenticeships
We picked this up in the DFES Schools Research Newsletter for December and it makes interesting reading with clearly lots of issues to be dealt with.  The full report and executive summary can be downloaded from here.
The review highlights issues in several areas:
  • The lead contractor/subcontractor relationship particularly in areas such as fees where half of lead contractors were retaining more than the SFA's expected maximum fee of 15%
  • A lack of quality assurance by lead contractors on their sub-contractors
  • Too much emphasis on paperwork auditing rather than improving provision and in some cases, too much emphasis was being placed on assessment of apprentices rather than their actual learning
A significant number of apprentices thought they did not have real or sustained employment and did not consider themselves to be holding a permanent job.

Progression qualifications are "go"
We saw announcements from a number of leading awarding bodies about "progression" qualifications – so what are they?
Well they are aimed at adults and we like to describe them as "little bits of Functional Skills".  To give you a flavour, here's the link to the OCR Progression Brochure.
Coinciding with the accreditation of these adult qualifications, Guroo also launched a series of tutorial videos that mix video teaching with animation and real life examples that map very nicely to many of the progression qualification areas.  If you'd like to see more of these call Guroo and we'll tell you where they are on the site or join us tomorrow for a webinar based around these new tutorial videos.

Wednesday Webinar at 4.00pm
Teaching Functional Maths can be hard for non-specialist teachers.  All the evidence shows that both tutors and learners can struggle with maths particularly at levels 1 and 2.  A series of brand new tutorial videos are now available from Guroo that cover many of the key mathematical concepts at from Entry Level 3 to Level 2. They are ideal for improving the confidence and competence of non-specialist teachers and as a great learning aid for learners.  
Join us on Wednesday at 4pm for a webinar based around support for Teaching Functional Maths.  Just email info@guroo.co.uk for joining information.
All previous webinars are recorded and available anytime for playback - login as a guest and the password is password.  Simply click on the links below and don’t forget, if you’d like to have your own 1:1 webinar looking at how Guroo can help you support Functional Skills, just call us on 0191 305 5045 or email info@guroo.co.uk and we’ll take it from there.

The market continues to change

An announcement today from Pearson saying they are pulling out of the Adult market (through Pearson in Practice) but putting more into the Apprenticeships market through Pearson Work Based Learning.  A sign of the times I guess!

Wednesday 2 January 2013

New features in Guroo

Just sometimes, data collection is a wonderful thing and between September and December 2012, we noticed that the success rate in Maths Functional Skills was significantly below that of English and ICT. We checked with our customers, and indeed with other companies in the sector and sure enough - it's a common problem, learners and tutors alike struggle with Maths Functional Skills with E3 and L1 being the popular area for current achievement.

So we've done something about it at Guroo Functional Skills - developed a series of tutorial videos that focus on different concepts in Functional Maths, typically around Entry Level 3 and Level 1.

So concepts such as conversions, percentages, fractions, probability  division and equivalences.

And the next stage is to do the same for some English concepts - we'll start with apostrophes and commas.

Want to know more?  Simply call Guroo on 0191 3055045 or goto www.guroo.info and click TRY.