As someone who has taught Functional Skills Maths for the last 2 years and has managed the course itself for the majority of that time, I feel that I have managed to grasp some concepts and some best practice for teaching this subject in a Further Education environment, or at the very least, I hope that I am doing the best by my students within this respect.
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For those colleagues who are teaching in secondary and considering the shift towards teaching further education mathematics, Functional Skills can be a rewarding programme to teach for young people. I would stress some restraint before thinking that it is an easier version of GCSE delivery for older students, Functional Skills (especially at Level’s 1 and 2) will challenge your students in their mathematic ability and how they apply mathematic concepts to real life situations. An employer values functional skills qualifications as they build in problem solving skills alongside the basic mathematics that the majority of the qualification covers within a workplace setting.
Functional Skills in English, Maths and ICT were originally introduced in education from 2012, preceding it was a lengthy review of how young people achieve qualifications within these areas that differentiate from GCSE to apply contextual problem solving skills that employers value. Many major awarding bodies now accredit these qualifications within educational centres with many taking steps towards flexibility for apprenticeships and having their own take on what their questions are structured like.
Functional Skills qualifications map onto the Adult Core Curriculum areas within English and Maths (The maths one can be found here for download) where differentiated levels exist from Entry Level 1 to Level 2. The majority of students within an FE college will be working towards Level 1 or 2 as a condition of their funding, however adult based learning centres and other providers may offer entry level qualifications to encourage adult learners to address embedded issues within different subject areas and build confidence in these skills.
As a manager of this course, it is incredibly important to me that functional skills delivery is not just a “duller and dumbed down” GCSE course but rather an exploratory educational experience for learners where confidence within these skills enable learners to pursue their chosen career paths confident in their application of their newfound abilities. As much as we like to teach in this environment, in the FE college environment, you have to build a resilience due to the type of learner you are likely to encounter completing these qualifications. I am going to share with you some great advice that I’ve learned over my experience of managing and delivering these important qualifications.
1) The worksheet should support the learning, not guide it
Your learners adapt and are constantly responding to things around them, they will need engagement to build a resilience to mathematics delivery from their previous education provider. A great example of this is how you deliver the skills to your learners, start with the basics and ensure security on them (there will be high fliers, so just be sure to challenge them a little more) before advancing onto more complex examples. Once you have built a solid foundation for students to work with, a worksheet could be implemented to encourage students to direct themselves.
I am not a fan of the worksheet (unless it’s one I’ve made myself) but that doesn’t mean I don’t agree with their usage, if you intend to deliver these skills, I would recommend avoiding them for the first few lessons. From a psychological standpoint, your students have already formed an opinion conditioned from secondary school of what a maths lesson is like, try to show them something a little more inspired.
2) Examples, Examples, Examples
As you grow and develop as a lecturer, you will be able to grasp onto a variety of real-life situations where the students can apply their functional skills learning, there are some great contextual books available for specific areas to work through but I would consider developing your knowledge from other areas to gain an idea of how you can embed that within your delivery.
Best practice would call for you to observe other colleagues, but let’s face it, you are going to struggle with your own time restraints to get this done effectively. Instead, I would think of examples from your own life, I regularly talk to students about having a mobile phone contract (the majority of them do as well) and we discuss all sorts of mathematical ideas (interest rates, discounts, percentages, fractions) which can be scaffolded across a whole lesson, more often then not, I get questions from students about something they aren’t sure about, one of my students felt comfortable showing me what their payslip looked like and what it all means, engage them with examples they can relate to and it may help it stick when they leave your class.
3) Scaffold the questions to gain results
A big lengthy question on a certain topic is how they will be assessed in functional skills, the exams are made up of 3 parts to form the overall functional skills picture so we need to consider each part equally to ensure the best result for your learners. The majority of students really struggle with scale drawing tasks and how these relate to something they are likely to see.
Start with the basic skills and then address questions from there, start with a simple calculation and talk about it’s importance for working out the next question. An example of this may be working out the cost of a meal out for each person, you may start with 5 friends going to dinner and what they had, you could then discuss the idea of tipping at a certain percentage (extra Equality and Diversity points if you discuss tipping systems in different countries) and then splitting the final bill. React to your students, if they are struggling, go for a smaller example to develop the skills then expand from there. You’ll be surprised by the end of the lesson when a student who struggled to work out a percentage can tell you the cost of an evening out and give themselves a budget development lesson to boot. They may think of you when they have to financially manage themselves one day.
4) You will need to develop learners English skills
English within functional skills Maths exams is vital for ensuring learners are able to access the material that is presented to them. Some questions rely on students to pick information out of tables which are complex to gain an insight into something which they may have never heard about before. Some of my students struggled with working out the running costs of a washing machine, naturally, they’ve probably never thought about how they work or that it costs a certain percentage of a water or electricity bill so the more you can get them developing their English skills the better.
Your students will need to remember to read the question fully before attempting it. Some students read it, then straight away jump to “I don’t know” like a safety blanket, it’s what they are used to doing so you need to show some restraint and allow them to talk out their thoughts about the question. I ask questions such as “What is the situation about”, “What would you do in that situation yourself”, “What methods could we use here”. The students we work with won’t attempt it in fear of being wrong, but it is the building of resilience to try mathematical methods that will help them when they leave functional skills behind and step into the workplace for potentially the first time.
5) Finally, Praise positive efforts and encourage methods over answers
How many of your students say “Is this right?” and look for validation of whether the final answer is correct? How many check their work before asking for advice? What proportion of your students need re-assurance that they are doing the right thing before even attempting it?
The majority of functional skills students in an FE college will struggle to try in fear of being wrong, it is human nature to think that we want to be seen in the most positive way possible and our own self-image is important to our peers. I have students in some classes who won’t even try because they are afraid of getting it wrong, and if they get it wrong, they get angry and the usual rhetoric appears
“I’ve always been bad at this” “I’m going to give up” “I don’t need this anyway”
My advice, never tell a student if they are correct, instead ask this question “explain how you did it”, not only does this apply the student to consider their method to gain maximum marks, but it also reinforces their skills within maths to develop their learning. As education providers, we all know that if you can explain something to someone else, it strengthens your understanding of the material itself, so get your students to teach you. Have a bit of fun with it, I say the phrase “Explain like I’m five” to get through their explanation of it, you can also expand this to popular characters “Explain it to Homer Simpson anybody?”
I hope you’ve gained something from this long blog post about functional skills, I would love to hear others opinions on what they do in their functional skills classrooms to encourage learning of these core skills.
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Really helpful tips, thank you ! Especially about not saying “right” or “wrong” … I had this with an underconfident pupil last week
A practical not theoretical article, so very valuable
A good way to be a better teacher is to take the exam yourself.