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ICT and Functional Skills
August 1st, 2008 by misterel
Functional skills are a fantastic idea. The need to pass a functional skills test in order to get a diploma is a great idea. The need to pass level 2 functional skills test in English, Maths and ICT to get a coresponding A*-C at GCSE is quite scary. The premise is (as far as I have worked out) that for a pupil to get a GCSE in any of the three ‘tool’ subjects (Maths, English or ICT) then they must have passed a functional skills test.
I’m not sure on the impact of this on the two core subjects, but for ICT it all depends on what you deliver at KS4 and whether you are offering a Diploma. OCR Nationals & DiDA are not ‘true’ GCSEs so are therefore exempt from the need to have functional skills… Therefore I can foresee a massive increase in the number of schools offering those 2 options and ditching the GCSE.
However, back to my first statement…’Functional skills are a fantastic idea’. I believe this to be the case. The reason being is that our kids are, in general spoon fed. They get help with coursework, how to write exam answers, essays etc… But, when they try to transfer skills from one subject area to another there seems to be issues. Many a time I have seen pupils using PowerPoint inappropriately in an English lesson and I am quite sure that our pupils fail to write ‘persuasively’ in an ICT lesson…
What to do next is my next dilema. Having been on a recent launch for functional skills and seen the amount of money the government is throwing at it, functional skills look like they are here to stay. Having had a few chats with our Deputy Head I reckon our best bet is to get all pupils to take the functional skills test in Yr 9. This will mean that any pupils doing ICT GCSE or a diploma will already have deomonstrated their ICT functionality before starting their new courses. Also think we will go with the Welsh board, have heard good things about their assessment… will trial it next year.
Posted in Teaching & Learning | tagged assessment, English, functional skills, ICT, Maths, spoon feeding, welsh board | | 0 Comments
