Reformed Functional Skills in English and Maths (effective from 1st September 2019)
The reformed Functional Skills English and Mathematics Levels 1 and 2 qualifications have followed a government reform and regulatory evaluation process to improve their rigour and relevance, ensuring they meet employer needs in terms of skills and knowledge that learners achieve.
Skillsfirst’s reformed Functional Skills English and Mathematics Levels 1 and 2 qualifications follow a skills-based approach so that they fully support learners to operate effectively and confidently in education, employment and everyday life and through a wide range of apprenticeship programmes. They are designed to bring real-life contexts and scenarios into the learning environment by exploring topics that are authentic and allow learners to develop transferable knowledge, skills and understanding relevant to everyday life and work.
Please note, the Legacy Functional Skills ICT Level 1 and Level 2 qualifications remain unchanged.
Benefits of offering functional skills with Active IQ In order to support our total qualification solution offering, Active IQ is now able to offer functional skills to its approved centres through its partnership with Skillsfirst. Centres approved to deliver functional skills with Active IQ will also benefit from maintaining continuity of external quality assurance via their existing external verifier.
Both onscreen and paper-based tests are available and centres are also provided with a range of interactive online support materials to help tutors prepare learners for their functional skills assessments. Further features and benefits include:
- Onscreen assessment delivery, fully on-demand with colour preferences to suit all learners (exams can be taken 30 minutes after registering the learner).
- Paper-based exam options available.
- Results released within four weeks of the exam being uploaded (onscreen).
- Ongoing reviews of papers to improve clarity and learner performance.
- No fee for voiding examinations (paper-based or onscreen).
- No limitations on resits.
- Develop your own SLC tasks.
- Senior examiner reports available to help improve learner performance.
- Practice papers available (PDF and Flash versions available to emulate onscreen assessment).
- Tutorial videos showing users how to navigate testing software.
- Weekly performance statistics available.
How can my centre become approved to offer functional skills with Active IQ?
If you are already an approved Active IQ centre, you’ll need to complete an Additional Qualification Approval Form via your Active Intel account and submit this to us. Contact approvalsteam@activeiq.co.uk for guidance if you have any queries.
Centres that are not currently approved to offer our qualifications will need to apply for centre approval. Click here for more details. If you would like to find out more about offering functional skills with Active IQ, please contact businessdevelopment@activeiq.co.uk
What are the fees for functional skills?
£16.75 plus VAT per functional skill.
Is there a resit fee if learners fail their functional skills exam(s)?
The first resit is FREE. All resits thereafter will be charged at £18 plus VAT per resit.