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Functional Skills: their significance for Higher Education

Functional Skills: their significance for Higher Education. Gerry Rogers; 14-19 Policy Manager. (Gerry.Rogers@Edexcel.org.uk). 1. What are Functional Skills?.

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Functional Skills: their significance for Higher Education

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  1. Functional Skills: their significance for Higher Education Gerry Rogers; 14-19 Policy Manager. (Gerry.Rogers@Edexcel.org.uk)

  2. 1. What are Functional Skills? • ‘Those core elements of English, Maths & ICT that provide an individual with the essential knowledge, skills and understanding to enable them to operate confidently, effectively and independently in life and work. (DCSF) • Part of National 14-19 Entitlement • A set of standards, (See QCA website) (Origin???) • Part of a curriculum • Blend of 14-19 key skills and adult literacy and numeracy into one set of standards. • Replacement for ‘Alan’

  3. 2. …and what aren’t they? • Key skills assessed by portfolio • Learning programmes • A curriculum • graded • sensitive to varied learner abilities • reflection of GCSE inclusion • PLTS

  4. 3. Where do they live? • In all prescribed routes for 14-19 learners: GCSEs, GCEs, Diplomas, Apprenticeships, • Efectively an addition to the national curriculum at levels 1 & 2 • Impact on KS3 as well as 4 • Adult learner markets (both skills based & community learning) • Work-based learning provision eg Apprenticeships • Biggest pilot QCA have ever run before adults factored in. • At Entry Level in Foundation Learning Tier: ‘Key objective is to provide better for those who are currently dropping out between the ages of 16 and 18. Overwhelmingly these are young people who have done less well at school, and who are not ready to move on to level 3 provision at 16’ Learning Matters.

  5. 4. What do they do/are they expected to do, and not do? • Reinforce ‘rite of passage’ eg L3 diploma achievement requires Level 2 FS • Means of ‘sorting sheep from goats’ for employers??? • Critical role of FS at age 16 given 50/50 achievement: ‘The learning needs of those with below average academic attainment have never been properly addressed, despite the fact that – by definition – they form half the cohort’. ‘Learning Matters’ • ‘Assessment of learners has been over-emphasised at the expense of the development of methods of promoting learning’ Geoff Stanton: Learning Matters (CfBT) • ‘Assessment for learning’ absent from explicit discourse

  6. 5. So who needs them? School leavers according to constant complaints from employers’ pressure groups eg • British Chambers of Commerce, • Federation of Small Businesses, • CBI, • Institute of Directors. • Not forgetting students entering HE • Plus Sandy Leitch…

  7. 6/7. How are learners expected to learn and be assessed? • Embedding/contextualization • Opportunities for a fresh pedagogy of inductive reasoning? (lessons from BTECs?) • Some stand-alone teaching? • ------------------------------------------------------ • By free standing tests & controlled assessments, eg onscreen… • …for all Diploma providers & some non-diploma providers; controversy…

  8. 8. What’s currently happening? • Currently being piloted – biggest pilot scheme QCA have ever run before adults are factored in • Evaluation (Centre for Lifelong Learning; Warwick University 2007) ‘Design is broadly workable’ • Major national staff training programme by SSAT & QIA • Teaching and learning resources being developed by…

  9. 9. Some recent uncertainties: • Question over whether learners are able to transfer these skills to the workplace? • Developments at L3 & even L4? • Issues Paper from Nuffield Review of 14 – 19 education and training: ‘Our conclusion is that there is still some way to go and that there are still some significant obstacles in the way’. • Comprehensive progress survey of 14 – 19 partnerships across 150 Local Authorities by the National Audit Office ‘Functional skills seem to pose a particular issue; we found they were not well understood’.

  10. 10. Prognosis and The Hurdle? • Here to stay? • ‘Shaped by powerful external forces such as employers & HE which exercise a largely conservative influence’; Hodgson & Spours. • ------------------------------------------------------------------- • Impact on achievement rates for GCSE English & Maths in Summer 2010: • ‘…unwanted and unwarranted failure for both teachers & students…’

  11. 11. Noting the impact of RoCPA & Neets: • Raising of the compulsory participation age; 17/18 by 2013/5… • Impact on demographics; natural downturn countered by increasing involvement • Implications for NEETS?..

  12. 12. Implications for HE admissions tutors & teachers? • Assessing ‘spiky profile students’ • Maths the most problematic area? • Implications for composite achievement of Diplomas? • -------------------------------------------------------------------- • Possible reduction in skills requiring attention? • Possible reduction in entrants due to 60%/46% GCSE A*-C achievement rates • Beware the ‘law of unintended consequences’! • Whose interests are the most pressing in this discussion?

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