New qualifications in Functional Skills English and maths are coming in 2019
03 April 2018
In an article which first appeared in OCR’s Agenda newsletter, Paul Steer, OCR’s Head of Policy, puts on his rose-tinted spectacles and imagines how things might be…
It is the year 2023. Dean, a young customer support assistant, is composing an apology to a customer. The company messed up and he is determined to get the tone of the apology just right and to set out the reasons for the poor service as clearly as possible. No sooner has he sent his carefully-worded message than the customer responds, thanking him for taking the time to explain the situation and assuring him of further custom. Meanwhile, Kiran, the trainee administrator, is looking through the sales accounts. It isn’t really her job, but she is confident with numbers and enjoys running over the figures. She spots something that doesn’t look right and wanders over to the accounts team to point it out. She does so in an appropriate manner, so as not to rub the accountant up the wrong way. The office manager watches his new employees – they are quite remarkable and they have one thing in common – they both have Functional Skills in English and maths.
At the local college, Tracey, a maths coach, is taking the class through their paces with some applied maths problems. She remembers the bad old days when she took classes for GCSE resits. It is very different now – nobody bunks off – even though the work is sometimes demanding as they struggle to improve the foundation skills they need in order to move on to real-world problem solving. But nobody asks why they have to attend her class. They can see that the maths they are learning underpins the vocational and academic courses they are taking. They understand that they need to be adept at the essentials of maths in their everyday lives – knowing how to manage their credit cards and their mobile phone accounts, and being able to see through the data that underpins health scares and political debates.
There is a wealth of material available online, of the highest quality, that Tracey uses to stimulate her class and get them arguing with each other in a (usually) productive manner.
She knows most of the class will be taking both Functional Skills maths and English tests at the end of next term. The diagnostic tools she uses shows they are nearly all making the right levels of progress. She is confident they will get the grades they deserve and that the tests will be engaging and fun, as well as challenging. For those who won’t be ready in time, there will be plenty of further opportunities to take the tests. Students will also get detailed feedback on how they performed which is both encouraging and informative.
As for the tests themselves, she knows they will be relevant, with contexts which are plausible and clearly targeted at assessing their skills. There will be no quadratic equations and no boring, contrived scenarios about making chutney or building a run for a guinea pig. No scenarios with fifteen to twenty questions hanging off them that mean you have to scroll back and forth between those pages describing the scenario and those containing the actual questions. Tracey is also pleased that the exam regulator has taken the necessary steps to make sure that the Functional Skills exam boards all have tests of the highest design quality and, crucially, that all their tests are of the same level of difficulty.
Tracey reflects on the fact that the newest intake of students at the college are noticeably different in their confident use of communication and numbers. This is because Functional Skills maths and English classes are being introduced at Key Stage 4 and below in schools – not because this attracts school performance points that count towards league tables, not because the government has prescribed it in the curriculum, but because teachers, parents and pupils all value it, sometimes more so than the GCSEs. Even the universities are beginning to ask for Functional Skills instead of GCSE maths and English.
Meanwhile, the latest Secretary of State for Education is enjoying a warm reception at a teaching conference. She is asked why the revised Functional Skills maths and English qualifications have proven so popular. She lists the main factors: a careful, well-managed roll out; a period of testing and piloting with a willingness to make the necessary tweaks; the rigorous use of research; a recognition that Functional Skills must be different – very different – to GCSEs in both content and pedagogy; an avoidance of the ‘parity of esteem’ debate; a decent funding regime, leaving it to the professionals; and, she concedes, with a smile, a great deal of optimism.