Nursery World - Qualifications

A functional skills consultation was launched last month for the second time. Hannah Crown reports

After years of controversy, functional skills are no longer a dead end in the early years. Level 2 maths and English iterations of the qualification, viewed as a workplace-specific alternative to GCSEs, were again accepted as part of a Level 3 EYE qualification following a Government U-turn in March after a sector-wide campaign.

While that was going on, the Government has been embarking on a programme of reform of functional skills generally. Following Ofqual’s Thematic Review of Functional Skills in 2015, the Education and Training Foundation (ETF) was commissioned to review what employers and students need from non-GCSE maths and English qualifications. In its ‘Making maths and English work for all’ report, it said functional skills were useful, and were ‘not broken but could be improved’.

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