Independent evaluation of functional skills
Functional skills are the practical skills in English, information and communication technology (ICT) and mathematics that allow people to work confidently, effectively and independently in life. A new set of functional skills qualifications ranging from Entry Level 1 to Level 2 were developed in England and Wales in 2007, and then piloted for three years through to September 2010.
Functional skills qualifications are:
- a component of the new Foundation, Higher and Advanced Diplomas
- part of all Foundation Learning programmes
- a component in apprenticeship frameworks (NB Key skills have been extended until March 2011 for use in apprenticeship frameworks, allowing providers the choice of offering either functional skills or key skills until 31 March 2011).
For a period during the pilot, functional skills were also planned to be a pre-requisite for achievement of a grade C or above in GCSE English and mathematics.
The pilot involved ten Awarding Organisations, some 3000 centres, and hundreds of thousands of functional skills examinations.
AlphaPlus first became involved in the project in 2009, the second year of the pilot. At that time, we organised regional consultations with around 900 teachers delivering functional skills in schools and colleges. Following these activities we were engaged as the independent evaluator for the summer 2009 series of assessments, and continued from September 2009 to the end of the project in January 2011 working with Tribal as part of the evaluation team.
Our work involved statistical analysis of the qualitative and quantitative data, including leading on the analysis of Awarding Organisation data at student and item level along with background data from the national pupil database (NPD) for half a million assessments. We analysed quantitative and qualitative feedback data from Awarding Organisations and managed an on-line questionnaire with responses from about 750 pilot providers. Our work also included large numbers of visits to schools and colleges to evaluate how the delivery of functional skills was progressing.
Functional skills support programme
We supported Deloitte’s development of the Functional Skills support programme – writing many of the resources associated with the project (http://www.fssupport.org/resources).
Functional skills assessments
AlphaPlus consults for and writes Functional Skills assessments in English, mathematics and ICT for a number of Awarding Organisations.
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