'The term "functional" should be considered in the broad sense of providing learners with the skills and abilities they need to take an active and responsible role in their communities, everyday life, the workplace and educational settings. Functional English requires learners to communicate in ways that make them effective and involved as citizens, to operate confidently and to convey their ideas and opinions clearly.'
Functional skills standards, 'Introduction to ICT', © Qualifications and Curriculum Authority 2007.
The Functional skills standards provide a single ladder of achievement from Entry 1 to Level 2 that is available to all learners from Key Stage 3 upwards, whatever learning pathway they are taking. The standards support learners in building, developing and consolidating skills that can be applied and transferred to a range of contexts, both within and beyond the English classroom. The focus is on securing skills that can be used in learning, work and everyday life.
'It is essential to think of learners becoming functional in their English rather than thinking there is a vital body of knowledge known as functional English.'
Teaching and learning functional English, QIA/SNS 2007
Functional English is not a discrete component of the new programmes of study but is embedded within them. In particular, the key processes and range and content sections reflect the functional English standards at Level 1 at Key Stage 3 and at Level 2 at Key Stage 4. For further information, see functional skills in the English programme of study at Key Stage 3 and functional skills in the English programme of study at Key Stage 4.
The curriculum opportunities section of the programmes of study specifies that pupils speak, listen and write for contexts beyond the classroom. This requirement ensures that pupils select, use and apply their functional skills in a range of purposeful situations. The programmes of study also stress the need to provide compelling learning experiences for pupils so that they engage more profoundly with what they are learning and internalise the skills they are developing.
Much of current teaching and learning in English already addresses functional skills. To enhance alignment, teachers will need to focus on applied learning, including opportunities for problem-solving scenarios or activities that require pupils to think for themselves and to select which functional English skills are required to succeed.
Fundamental to this process is an understanding of the factors that underpin progression, and of the level of demand a learner faces in a particular task. These factors are:
More information about the range of approaches for teaching and learning functional skills is available as part of the Excellence Gateway, in particular the downloadable PDF Teaching and learning functional English.
Schools will need to decide:
For the majority of pupils, the teaching and development of functional English will become an integral part of the English curriculum at Key Stages 3 and 4. Within English lessons, pupils will need opportunities to apply their skills to a range of topics relevant to life and work. Pupils will need to understand where there are opportunities for them to transfer the skills they have developed. Links need to be made to other aspects of the curriculum so that young people can apply their functional skills to, for example, the principal learning of the Diploma framework or to aspects of enterprise or citizenship.
Assessment of functional English is still in pilot stage and is currently being trialled as a stand-alone test. Teaching of the revised GCSE English specification from 2010 for first award in 2012 will need to ensure that, if candidates are to achieve GCSE English grades A*–C, they have mastered functional English at Level 2.
For more information relating to functional skills and assessment, visit the 14–19 education and skills website.
Functional skills are part of a three-year pilot that will support national implementation of the qualifications from 2010.
The revised programmes of study, which embed functional skills, will be rolling out at Key Stage 3 from September 2008 and at Key Stage 4 from September 2010. Subject leaders need to be aware that those pupils who entered Year 7 in September 2007 will be the first cohort to be affected by the requirement to have functional English at Level 2 in 2012. It would therefore be useful to include functional English and skills development as a feature of curriculum planning for both Years 7 and 8 from September 2008 as shown in Time line for change (198.31 KB).
