Functional Skills

Functional Skills ‘Functional’ – providing learners with the skills and abilities they need to take an active and responsible role in their communities, everyday life, the work place and educational settings. Defintions straight from standards site Functional mathematics requires learners to use mathematics in ways that make them effective and involved as citizens, operate confidently and to convey their ideas and opinions clearly in a wide range of contexts

Functional Skills ‘Functional’ – providing learners with the skills and abilities they need to take an active and responsible role in their communities, everyday life, the work place and educational settings. Functional English requires learners to communicate in ways that make them effective and involved as citizens, to operate confidently and to convey their ideas and opinions clearly. Again, straight from Standards

Functional Skills 2005 – Functional skills is announced as integral to the 2010 curriculum changes 2007 – various models considered 2008 – most likely model to be adopted is a hurdle – without L2 functional numeracy or literacy, grade C will not be awarded in Maths or English This is what we were understood to be the situation. Time at Maths Subject leaders day has been given over to this. Then …

Functional Skills 2nd April 2009. OfQual decide that functional skills as a hurdle is not fair. 2nd April 2009. Jim Knight MP writes to OfQual and states that they ‘still expect students to achieve a Level 2 functional qualification in Maths and English’ The reason it is not fair is that there would not be parity between equivalent qualifications in England compared to Wales and Scotland. … Despite this gov’t are still keen. As usual, these things are announced the day we break up for a holiday!

Functional Maths April 2009 – New Subject Criteria for 2010 (exam 2012) are released stating that … GCSE assessments in mathematics must allocate a weighting of 20-30 per cent on higher tier and 30-40 per cent on foundation tier for the functional elements of mathematics. This is now the official line… As you can see, as well as students being expected to get functional maths and english, it will also be part of the 2010 GCSE’s. This in on top of new GCSE maths specs in 2003, 2007, 2008, 2009!

Functional Maths Level 1 Less familiar situations Non – routine aspects to the situation Choice of method or procedure Models need to be selected and adapted Guidance given, but autonomous decisions are required Some of the key apsects of Level 1

Functional Maths Level 2 Unfamiliar contexts The maths required may not be obvious Non routine aspects Methods may involve several steps, and may require identification of underlying structure Guidance may be provided, but choices are independently made and evaluated The key thing with both of these is the unfamiliar contexts and non routine nature of what they are asked. It is problem solving in its wider sense, Thus there is no way of “teaching to the test” These skills however are transferable and if we get it right it should improve their ability to identify what information is required and what to do with it Here is an example of a Level 2 question…

Functional Maths – an example Here is the context. Whilst it is something recognisable, it is not familiar. There is a lot of information to take in! It goes on…

Functional Maths – an example 5 minutes planning Here is the data. You will see there is a reasonable amount. The question is … Not really a question, more a hypothesis to test. Is all the data relevant? (No) How long do you get??... Planning time … Doing time. There are three tasks in the 75 minute exam. This is not a trivial task, but the skills that could be used could also be used to analyse scientific or geographical data. Examiners report Virtually all candidates were able to make a start and most recognised which aspects of the given information needed investigation. However there were few instances of full credit being given. This was frequently the result of giving no numerical data to support purely qualitative arguments and in some cases extraneous information relating to human nutrition and health. A large minority of candidates simply made reference to the self-evident fact that “exercise loses weight”. A disappointing number of candidates merely compared numbers of those subjects who lost weight, disregarding the fact the there were unequal numbers of subjects in each. Indeed a few candidates solved this problem by using the random number facility on their calculators to remove some subjects to give equally sized data sets. This showed a high mathematical capability, but worrying in that using mean values which was a more direct and possibly more valid method was not even considered or mentioned in passing. Weight loss was essentially the only feature investigated, with only the occasional reference to the possibility that age might be a factor worth considering. No other relevant observations about size of the data base or other points of possible significance were mentioned. There were no meaningful remarks relating to the checking or reasonableness of calculated results. This task shows quite nicely why we choose to do GCSE Stats … 20 minutes doing

GCSE Statistics In addition many students are studying GCSE Statistics. Statistics Maths Higher Statistical techniques Number Algebra Geometry Data Handling Statistics is a whole GCSE, but with only half the extra content. This puts Maths more on a par with English’s 2 GCSE’s and Science’s two (for the majority) GCSE with their 8 lessons. As a subject, it has knock on benefits into sciences and social sciences, as many of the techniques taught here are later used, for example in A level Psychology or Geography coursework. One of the ways we intend to alter the way we teach this course, is to make it even more transferable, with an emphasis on skills as much as on mere knowledge This also puts us on a par with … English, who have long had 2 subjects Science, who have 8 lessons and do 1,2 or 3 subjects.

GCSE English Literature All students take 3 qualifications: Functional Skills GCSE English GCSE English Literature Sets 1 – 6. OR Entry Level Sets 7,8,9.

Functional English To enable students to communicate in ways that make them effective and involved as citizens to operate confidently and to convey their ideas and opinions clearly. 3 skill areas: Speaking and Listening Reading Writing

Functional English Emphasis on ‘real life’ situations Transferable skills Level 2: Students must show accuracy and judgement in making the right choices to communicate effectively in a particular context. They must show an organised approach and evaluate usefulness of a range of texts and information sources as well as make choices in terms of style, vocabulary, presentation and format. They must demonstrate problem-solving skills in applying their knowledge in unfamiliar contexts.

Functional English Speaking and Listening: articulating views effectively in discussions, presentations. Reading: summarise a text succinctly; extract relevant information effectively across a variety of texts; detect point of view; implicit meaning and bias. Writing: write concisely and clearly across a wide range of formats on paper and on screen; use correct spelling, punctuation and grammar; adapt style and format to suit audience; context and purpose.

Functional English – an example