Contextual Resources

Literacy – aimed at Level 1-2 and links to imaginative writing at GCSE.
Quirky fun starter – find your pirate name. This can be done on mobile phones if there are no PCs.
Comprehension tasks.
After finding the King’s shilling, write descriptive letter home.

This teaching and assessment resource combines reading comprehension and a letter writing task based on an advert for a volunteer role as a Customer Service Assistant for a charity shop.

In Task 1, students read the job advert and answer questions to check their understanding. In Task 2, they make notes about their personal skills and qualities, then draft and write a letter to apply for the volunteer role. An additional, extension task is provided for students who either work at a faster pace or at a higher level, and involves writing a personal statement for a college course.

This resource uses several tables of data and requires the user to complete calculations based on the data such as mean, median, mode and range as well as percentages and rounding. There is also a task where the learner must create a chart based on a table of data.

Editor’s note
There is something for everyone in this robust resource as it’s split into three sections: weather, Premier League and Glastonbury Festival. With answers and curriculum mapping.

I have had feedback from people using the Big Brother PDF discussion worksheet (see link below – under see also) but without any pictures! The fun part of the session (and for it to really work) is to show the students the people they have chosen: this generates plenty of discussion about prejudice and stereotyping. So, here are the 20 pictures to match to each description given in the earlier resource. (You should feel free to edit and adapt according to the demographics / prejudices / preconceptions of own students).

21 interesting (and challenging!) questions for practice with converting between metric and imperial measurements. Question pages can be divided amongst the class and then answers can be shared. Extension ideas could include measuring learners’ feet/ height and comparing them to the records.

Editor’s note
Also provides practice with rounding decimals to a sensible number of decimal places.
The answer sheet, which includes detailed working out, is only available to site contributors. Please see details within the resource.

A differentiated resource to recap many number & measure skills and to help learners with the skills needed when looking for or applying for a job.

There are 6 questions in both the L1 and L2 version – working out weekly pay, annual salary, tax payable, comparing pay to JSA (Job Seeker’s Allowance), reading/completing a bus timetable and correcting a job acceptance letter (L1 Functional English proof reading).

A short, contextual news article with associated comprehension and two writing tasks (a Facebook message and a formal letter).

Editor’s note
With answers and detailed curriculum mapping.

This functional resource gets the learner to answers some questions about a depicted rail ticket and then look up costs for two journeys and carry out further calculations: Woking to London (E2), London to Glasgow (E3 extension questions).

Addition is used to find the cost of two tickets and subtraction to find the difference between two tickets and the cost of two tickets. Multiplication is used to find the cost of an hourly car park ticket.

A range of questions that I have designed for my Functional Skills Maths learners.The focus is on the four operations (+ – x ÷) with wide coverage of measures and money.

There are two sets of similar, but differentiated, questions so that learners at both both levels can complete them in the same lesson. Each set of questions cover several themes (dog show and music festival) followed by a set of mixed questions and a final page of stretch and challenge tasks.

Editor’s note
With curriculum mapping.
No answer sheet.

4 Oct 2017. Updated information on source material added

A reading activity on legal age limits in different parts of the UK. Includes: education, voting, driving, marriage and work. Based on materials at: http://esol.britishcouncil.org/content/learners/uk-life/be-safe-uk/what…