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Integrating Functional Skills

What are Functional Skills?

The definition of functional skills is described by Wilson (2008, pp. 41) as "a development initiative to standardise qualifications for English, maths and ICT", who also identifies these as "the skills that underpin all learning and without them learners will struggle to meet the demands of their qualification, the world of work and life skills". Functional skills therefore appear to be a set of skills required by all individuals in a social and employment capacity in the UK, in order to successfully integrate in a modern social, learning and working environment.

This definition is confirmed by Edexcel (2009), who state that functional skills are "practical skills that equip learners with the necessary knowledge and understanding to use and apply English, mathematics and ICT in everyday life. They aim to help learners maximise their potential in all areas, including higher education, at work, at home and in the community".

QDCA (2009) reinforce the above definitions by identifying functional skills as:-

"Functional skills are those core elements of English, ICT and mathematics that provide an individual with the essential knowledge, skills and understanding that will enable them to operate confidently, effectively and independently in life and at work. Individuals of whatever age who possess these skills will be able to participate and progress in education, training and employment. They will also be able to develop and secure the broader range of aptitudes, attitudes and behaviours that will enable them to make a positive contribution to the communities in which they live and work"

Functional skills are therefore the most recent product of a constantly evolving initiative to address a number of social and employment issues within the UK, where individuals fail to possess a certain recognised level in each of the skills involved. The initiative has been in existence for some time, and has previously been referred to by a number of different names. Wilson (2008, pp. 41) identifies the variations in name as "Core Skills [, ] Common Skills [, ] Key Skills [ and ] Minimum Core".

Despite the name changes, the objectives of the initiative have essentially been identical, in that they are all aimed at reducing the skills barrier for all UK citizens in an attempt to equip them with the skills to function in and contribute to their local community in each of social, economic and working contexts. It is anticipated that, provided an individual possesses a minimum standard in each of the functional skills, that the individual will be able to participate in society, education and working environments with many of the currently identified barriers eliminated.

Why use Functional Skills?

The drive to reduce the skills gap in the functional skills area for every citizen has been recognised by the Government and employers as a major factor that can be used in the drive to eliminate poverty and unemployment in the UK. FSSP (2007, pp. 8) confirm this by stating that "[t]he introduction of functional skills, both into the 14-19 curriculum and for adult learners, is being driven by a number of social, educational and economic concerns". These concerns are grounded in the crime, unemployment and poverty levels identified in statistical surveys carried out by a variety of different organisations. An interesting link to these is made by FSSP (2007, pp. 10), who quote from research that:-

"Official and unofficial reports dating back to the 19th century have identified poor standards of literacy and numeracy as a problem affecting not only the employability of individuals and the impact on the economy, but also the quality of people's lives in the broadest sense. Recent research from the National Research and Development Centre (NRDC), for example, has confirmed that people with poor levels of literacy and numeracy have poorer physical and mental health, live in lower standard accommodation, have higher rates of family breakdown, are more politically apathetic, are more likely to have been in trouble with the police, and have lower self-esteem. In recent years, the ability to cope with ICT, even at a very basic level, has become necessary for people to operate effectively in everyday life."

Focusing on the learning environment, functional skills are designed to form the basis that enables the learner to successfully participate in learning without facing difficulties in each of the areas and in meeting the requirements of the education they are seeking. Wilson (2008, pp. 46) confirms that "[f]unctional skills are essential; they will help your learners to achieve and succeed in life". In order to fully contribute and learn in any course, a fundamental knowledge of English, Mathematics and ICT is generally required, which is confirmed by Edexcel (2009), who argue that such skills are necessary to even participate in learning and that functional skills "have been designed in response to employers' perceptions that many young people and adults are not achieving a firm enough grounding in the basics"

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For example, with insufficient skill in English, a learner may not be able to correctly read important documentation including handouts, activities and signs – this can cause significant problems as the learner will need a large amount of support in order to be able to keep up with the other students, which the teacher is not generally in a position to be able to provide. Equally, issues with writing skills could mean that the learner cannot take adequate notes, or complete written assignments to the standard required in order to achieve on the course, while failure to understand verbal instructions could have disastrous consequences beyond failing to absorb the lesson being delivered.

Issues with handling mathematics can also create difficulties for learners. Where the class requires the learner to take measurements, and accurately calculate materials required for projects, this often prevent the learner from actively participating in the course and subsequently dropping out. This can also cause difficulties in working out positioning, sizing and calculations that should be simple to most learners, such as division of learners into groups.

ICT is a more complex issue, as many learners may not specifically require it for their course, but it could be beneficial in terms of other areas, such as research outside the class, online shopping for books and materials or other such matters. ICT also offers significant benefits in writing assignments and essays, as these can be quickly amended and re-written using an electronic word processor than writing with pen and ink, and many learning providers now expect learners to complete their work using ICT.

It is also a recognised obligation placed on all teachers by the Government that the teachers themselves should be competent in each of the functional skills areas, and be able to "develop these skills in their learners at every opportunity" (Wilson 2008, pp. 42). This is also recognised by Gravells & Simpson (2009, pp. 49), who state that "[i]ntegrating [functional skills] into your sessions is part of [the] professional role [of] a teacher", and argue that "[a]s a teacher, you should be able to demonstrate your own competence in the areas of literacy, language, numeracy and ICT".

It also stands to reason that the teacher must be competent in each of the functional skills, as each is required in order to successfully deliver the course. For example, mathematics is required in calculating register statistics, among other areas, while a good grasp of English and ICT are essential for generating clear and comprehensive course materials.

How can functional skills be integrated into the subject area of Silversmithing and Jewellery Making?

The most apparent methods of integrating functional skills into a subject area can form one of two main avenues; teacher-based delivery and class materials/handouts. These may or may not be in context with the course itself, but may be necessary to use an activity or task to follow on to a related activity that is in context with the course. Wilson (2008) identifies that there are two different terms for this; successfully integrating the functional skills within the context of the course is referred to as embedding functional skills, while integrating these out of the context of the course is referred to as integrating functional skills.

For the purposes of this paper, integrating functional skills will be considered as referring to both embedding and integrating functional skills, so that both in-context and out-of-context methods can be considered within the remit. The methodology for incorporating these skills into the subject area must therefore be broken down into each skill and considered against the curriculum to identify potential areas for inclusion. Gravells & Simpson (2009, pp. 50) identify examples of integrating functional skills into the delivery as including the following areas:-

Literacy

The key area that literacy is incorporated into the subject area is through the encouragement of the learner to make notes and the promotion of further reading into the subject through a number of resource books that are available from the tutor, and within the learning environment itself. Learners are requested to bring a pen and paper as a minimum during their participation in the course, and can each make notes on what they are doing, writing themselves instructions for future reference and making notes of any new terminology introduced to them.

This is supplemented by the tutor by utilising a number of specially designed activities which require the learner to read and understand the information on the handout, and also complete an activity to prove their knowledge. These consist of ‘fill in the gap’ worksheets, word searches, crosswords and other puzzles and activities to help the learner to enjoy their undertaking rather than forming the mental opinion that is commonly associated with most paperwork. This also forms the basis of the documentary evidence of learning used by the learning provider in their funding claims, effectively meeting two different requirements in a single document.

These documents could also be supplemented by additional and specific pages purely for learners to use to write notes for each session, so that they have a record of it to refer back to if they need to. These could easily be supplemented with project notes from the tutor.

In addition to this, reading homework or wirework projects could be set up using project briefs containing instructions that the learner must follow to make a piece of jewellery, complete a task, or be able to answer related questions the following week, or on a supplementary task sheet attached to the reading matter.

As previously stated, the tutor will need an acceptable standard in literacy skills to be able to mark and correct work, and provide guidance for further improvement. However, the tutor is not a literacy tutor and may need to refer the student to the many free providers of functional skills course available.

Language

The methods suggested for use in promoting language as a skill are fairly limited in terms of the subject area, as there is little scope for role play and interviews in the formal sense. However, verbal communication does play a irreplaceable role in the delivery of the subject material.

Much of the delivery of the subject material is either via demonstration or discussion, each of which heavily involves verbal instruction or discussion taking place, and subsequently requires the learner to be able to listen to and understand the instructions received. This is developed through gradual introduction and inclusion of new terminology, with reinforcement and verification of the learner's understanding of the terminology being tested at a later date, both by verbal questioning and by written activities.

Learners are also encouraged to listen and respond to verbal instructions given across the learning environment, for example a health and safety-related instruction to either cease or correct an activity which they are undertaking unsafely, with more detailed instruction given on a one-to-one basis to explain exactly why the instruction was given and to encourage the learner to correct the action for future attempts.

One-to-one discussion is also held with each learner near the start of each session, to identify progress made and to provide any advice or guidance required to enable the learner to progress with their work. As with all communication skills, this requires both the guidance to be delivered in a manner that the learner can be able to successfully and accurately interpret, and also for the learner to receive and correctly interpret, remember and recall the guidance.

The capacity for incorporating language and listening skills into the subject area is fairly limited beyond what is currently integrated, although this could potentially be expanded by utilising another skill – ICT – to record and make available instructions or verbal feedback from the tutor using the learning provider’s Virtual Learning Environment (VLE) that the learner can replay and listen to at any time after the session.

Numeracy

Integration of numeracy into the subject area is much simpler for Silversmithing, as there are many applications which it can be used for. Many of these have already been addressed, even if not formally recognised as having done so, and take the format of measurement and calculations made by learners when undertaking projects, working out materials required and other such activities.

Much of these have been formalised in project documentation, with calculation notes provided to aid the process, while others have been addressed through the use of written tasks and activities, which are backed up by verbal questioning carried out by the tutor and the kinaesthetic activity of actually performing the task in their project.

Further encouragement of numeracy skills has been made through the promotion of students' own work, where they are heavily involved in designing their own projects, with much less input from the tutor who performs more of a supporting capacity to the learner. In undertaking their own projects, learners must calculate the materials required, measure it out, weigh it and calculate the cost based on a material price per gram that is provided to them, and then be able to manipulate the materials into the piece itself.

Additional developments in this area could take the form of more activity sheets, especially around the hallmarking legislation requirements which are based on the weight of the piece. Students could be encouraged to consider the weight of the components, and estimate whether the piece may need hallmarking to be sold. This would involve simple addition, estimation and comparison skills.

ICT

As a workshop-based subject area, the use of ICT has long been recognised as a weakness. Despite the presence of an interactive whiteboard and computer in the workshop area, the use of technology has been quite limited, either due to lack of training on behalf of the tutors, or resistance to using technology purely because it exists rather than because it would add value to the course delivery.

However, the course provider does have a virtual learning environment that is available for use, and tutors have recently attempted to utilise this and make it more accessible for learners. Uptake on this has so far proved very limited, with only a single learner from two classes accessing the course site despite encouragement and time spent by tutors putting information and notes on the site.

Additional work is currently ongoing to take some activities into an electronic format that will allow learners to complete the activity online and print out their result, which will give them immediate results and the capacity for online marking without intervention by the tutor. This does cause some difficulties in terms of verification for assessment, but forms a simple supplement to other course material that can be made available to a much wider audience.

Learners are encouraged to perform internet searches when doing research for their own projects, and to build ‘mood boards’ that they can stick or print pictures of jewellery that they like and that provide inspiration for them. Search engines provide very useful tools in this respect, and are recommended by the tutors at every opportunity.

In addition to this, learners are provided with an email address to contact their tutor should they need to, although contact is generally very limited and restricted to occasional emails about absences rather than any regular communication. This could be expanded to encourage learners to use this facility when they are outside of the class, although this can have significant impacts on tutors' time spent outside of the classroom, and all tutors work part time on an evening and have full time jobs during the day in addition to this.

In Summary

Functional skills are the minimum standard of English, Mathematics and ICT that learners must possess in order to operate confidently and independently in a social capacity, in a work environment or in a learning environment. This is the latest incarnation of a constantly evolving initiative designed to address a number of social and employment issues within the UK where individuals fail to possess a certain recognised level in each of the skills involved. The initiative has been in existence for some time, and has previously been referred to by a number of different names such as Core Skills, Common Skills, Key Skills and Minimum Core.

The drive to reduce the skills gap in the functional skills area for every citizen has been recognised by the Government and employers as a major factor that can be used in the drive to eliminate poverty and unemployment in the UK, and is also a recognised obligation placed on all teachers by the Government that the teachers themselves should be competent in each of the functional skills areas, and to develop the skills of their learners whenever possible. As a result, the teacher must also be competent in each of the functional skills to be capable of successfully delivering the functional skill elements of the course. For example, mathematics is required in calculating register statistics, among other areas, while a good grasp of English and ICT are essential for generating clear and comprehensive course materials.

These skills can be integrated into any subject area through careful consideration of the course materials and topics and how each of the skills can be applied in ways that would be beneficial to the learner and subject delivery. This can be achieved a variety of different techniques such as using class activities, tasks set by the teacher and published course materials to encourage the learner to improve their ability in each of the skill areas. Tutors can also refer learners to sources of training for these skill areas if they deem it beneficial to the learner, or necessary for their successful participation in the course.

Referencing this article? Copy and paste the text below!

Price, J. [Teesside Silversmith] (2009) Integrating Functional Skills [Online] Available: http://www.teessidesilversmith.com/resources/html/functionalskills.php Accessed: 19/05/2012

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