Leading functional skills: Lead across a consortium

Review and plan ahead

Key questions

• How will we use the outcomes of our monitoring and evaluation processes to inform our future delivery of functional skills?
• How will we ensure that these outcomes support learners in wider developments in 14–19 education and training?

Targeting the key questions

To offer the full entitlement for learners to experience a range of realistic and relevant contexts consortia need to develop ways of working internally that maximise these opportunities. They are especially well placed to capitalise on opportunities to work with other providers and employers. Schools are responsible for ensuring learners have full access to all the pathways of which functional skills is a fundamental part, so learners need the opportunity to take functional skills as a stand-alone qualification to ensure progression pathways are not restricted.

As a result of monitoring, a consortium may develop a programme of professional development. This will support an individual school or college as they strive to improve.

The development of learners' personal, learning and thinking skills (PLTS) and those literacy and numeracy skills are aligned with personal and future economic prosperity in a modern world.

Functional skills provide a significant component in planning for future developments in:

• raising the participation age and engaging more learners into learning reducing those not in education, employment or training (NEET)
• broadening of post-14 and post-16 pathways into more Diplomas and Foundation Learning.

Future planning will need to consider:

• transfer arrangements of functional skills between different teachers, areas of the curriculum and Diploma centres
• arrangements for transition into and through KS3 and KS4 and into post-16 education or training centres
• learners' readiness for further study and their transition into employment.

Exemplification

Case study: Birmingham

In the Review and plan ahead: Birmingham case study, effective teaching and learning of functional skills as part of the Diploma principal learning was a priority in Golden Hillock School, but the school also wanted to transfer these approaches to KS3 and KS4 teaching.