Implementing functional skills reform
Applies to England
Download the full outcome
Detail of outcome
In response to consultation feedback, we have:
- increased the weighting of spelling, punctuation and grammar in English to 40-45% at levels 1 and 2, and 50-70% at the entry levels;
- revised our approach to monitoring of Speaking, listening and communicating assessments to focus on the assurance awarding organisations must obtain, without prescribing a particular approach to assurance; and
- amended our proposed Conditions and guidance in a number of places to deal with concerns raised by respondents. For example we have:
- made minor changes to our assessment criteria for Speaking, listening and communicating;
- revised our proposed rules on issuing results and certificates to make our expectations clearer; and
- revised our rules on standard setting to make them simpler and clearer, and to reflect the different information that will be available to awarding organisations at the different qualification levels.
We have adopted all our other proposals unchanged.
We have now published the following four documents, which implement our proposals:
Feedback received
Detail of feedback received
We received 30 full responses to our consultation.
We also received two further written submissions, where the respondents did not complete the mandatory screening questions. We have reviewed these responses to ensure they raise no additional issues, and incorporated the views raised within our qualitative analysis. They are not included in our quantitative analysis.
Original consultation
Consultation description
Functional skills qualifications (FSQs) in English and mathematics are being reformed and will be introduced for first teaching in September 2019.
In September 2017 we consulted on our approach to regulating new FSQs in English and mathematics and we have now confirmed our approach.
In our initial consultation, we set out the purposes of the reformed functional skills qualifications and confirmed that through our regulatory approach we are looking to increase the comparability between qualifications offered by different awarding organisations and over time, and to ensure there is greater control of standards.
This consultation builds on the decisions we have made and seeks views on the detailed conditions, requirements and guidance we want to put in place for new functional skills qualifications in English and mathematics.
Documents
Last updated 28 June 2018 + show all updates
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Published public feedback and consultation outcome, and our rules and guidance for reformed functional skills qualifications.
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added draft conditions and guidance documents.
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First published.