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Delivery and Evaluation of NOCN Functional Skills Qualifications
Delivery and Evaluation of NOCN Functional Skills Qualifications
To support delivery of the pilot qualifications, SNS (Secondary National Strategies) and QIA (Quality Improvement Agency) are running CPD programmes for those teaching on functional skills programmes.
National teaching and support materials for functional skills have also been developed by QIA. Four publications are available to support the delivery of functional skills qualifications: Managing delivery; Teaching and learning functional English; Teaching and learning functional mathematics, and; Teaching and learning functional ICT. These resources are available electronically by visiting QIA’s Excellence Gateway: http://excellence.qia.org.uk/functionalskills.
The new QCA curriculum website http://curriculum.qca.org.uk/ contains guidance and information on delivering functional skills within programmes of study for English, maths and ICT at key stages 3 and 4. This information is designed for schools but may be useful for embedding skills in other learning environments. In addition, all existing Skills for Life teaching materials and core curricula information can continue to be used to support programme delivery.
NOCN has also developed supporting information for pilot centres which contains more detail about offering the qualifications.
10 -25 centres nationally have expressed interest in involvement in the NOCN pilot programme. These include Further Education Colleges, Adult and Community Centres, work-based employers and centres within the justice system.
Centres using the assessments will be asked to contribute to the detailed evaluation of the functional skills pilot programme, so that this vital practitioner feedback can inform the on-going development of the pilot qualifications over the 3 years leading to recommendations on the implementation of functional skills qualifications.
NOCN is also proposing to take part in an additional strand of the functional skills piloting, which is being undertaken to inform policy decisions about the suitability of functional skills qualifications to replace the current Skills for Life qualifications in Adult Literacy, Adult Numeracy and ICT. This strand of the pilot is to begin in September and will span over the final two years of the main pilot.