Functional Skills Workshop led by Fiona Allan

Delegates were asked to work in groups of 4 and asked to look at Functional Skills Maths specimen papers form the various exam boards. The following points were addressed.

· What do you like about the specimen papers?

· What do you dislike?

· What will learners like about the paper?

· What will learners dislike about the paper?

The session promoted a lot of discussion and was a particularly useful for teachers currently involved in the pilot for Functional Skills and those teachers about to get involved. The whole idea of functional skills was not favourably received amongst those present as they were linked to candidates passing the GCSE maths. Some exam boards’ specimen papers were totally disliked and at least one had a gross error or indeed misleading, hence opening students up to failure.

Criticism – the questions are not contextualised so a lot of the papers at present do not lend themselves to vocational areas.

The general feeling - a lot of discussion and action is required by teachers who hope their voices will be heard. Fiona agreed to circulate feedback information from the session via email.