Functional Skills English

The Core Curriculum and Functions Skills Progression Overview side-by-side.
Editor’s note
The print quality of this resource may be low as it is a cut, pasted and scanned (very useful) document. It is not available, even to contributors, as a Word document.
Richard has also posted a link to an interactive version of this document.

Level
Entry Level 1
Entry Level 2
Entry Level 3
Level 1
Level 2
English
Functional Skills English
General
Staff development

Some games to play with literacy or Functional English groups for revision.
Ideal for Entry 3-Level 2

Editor’s note
The students make the games, play them and then discuss them. A great combination!

Level
Level 2
Level 1
Entry Level 3
English
General literacy / English
Functional Skills English
ESOL
General ESOL

This resource arose from a conversation with a learner who had lost their debit card a number of times in the cash machine because they couldn’t read the screen fast enough.

I used it by discussing each of the screens with learners and then having them work through the reading text and the accompanying exercises. Even better, if you have access to the internet, you can show different images of ATM screens and discuss them.

Level
Entry Level 3
Entry Level 2
Entry Level 1
English
General literacy / English
Functional Skills English
Context
Independent living
Business & Money management

Simplified texts and DARTS activities with follow up writing tasks at E1 and E2.
Based on material from the Holocaust Memorial Day Trust website http://hmd.org.uk/
Prior to completing the reading and writing tasks the class listened to a podcast of a survivor talking about their experiences.The material from both the listening activity (http://hmd.org.uk/resources/podcasts/i-was-there)

Level
Entry Level 2
Entry Level 1
English
General literacy / English
Functional Skills English
Context
History, culture, museums, libraries

A collection of resources based around the BBC programme CrimeWatch.
Designed with L1 Functional English students in mind, the lesson can lead in to further discussion about crime, security, safety etc.

Editor’s note
The PPT also acts as a lesson outline which covers the following learning objectives.

Level
Level 1
Level 2
English
General literacy / English
Functional Skills English
Context
Employment skills & Public services
Art Film Media Music Radio TV

Students design a board game to demonstrate their learning. This can incorporate IT skills (Word template provided below) or can be done with paper, card and pens.

I originally did this with an E2E group and it proved popular. It’s an alternative to the “design a poster” task to review learning. The instructions are set out as a board game. it can be used for literacy, numeracy, ICT or ESOL.

Level
Entry Level 2
Entry Level 3
Level 1
Level 2
English
General literacy / English
Functional Skills English
Maths
General numeracy / maths
Functional Maths
ESOL
General ESOL
ICT
Functional ICT
General
Generic resources for literacy, numeracy and beyond

An original resource to generate discussion, practise reading comprehension and writing skills (formal letter). Ideal for Functional Skills Motor Vehicle students. Aimed at L1-2 although the discussion is also suitable for Entry Level.

Level
Level 2
Level 1
Entry Level 3
English
General literacy / English
Functional Skills English
Context
Motor vehicles & Transport

A lovely unit of work from Australia. Designed to be used during and after the games.
Cloze exercise, web research, discussion and self-evaluation.

Editor’s note
Apologies, the resource file had gone missing! Re-attached Dec 9, 2013

Level
Level 1
Entry Level 3
English
General literacy / English
Functional Skills English
ICT
Functional Skills ICT: Finding and selecting information
Context
Sport and fitness

This carousel of Jubilee tasks was hurriedly put together for a group of 10 E1-E3 Functional Maths and English 16-19 year old learners who had just (very successfully!) finished all their Edexcel Functional Skills assessments.

After a year of hard work from my students, the emphasis was on celebration and fun. However, learning objectives included: measuring, counting, writing an email, spelling, 2D shapes, estimating, rounding and working with money. Rough lesson outline also included.

Level
Entry Level 1
Entry Level 2
Entry Level 3
English
General literacy / English
Functional Skills English
Maths
General numeracy / maths
Functional Maths
Context
History, culture, museums, libraries

A whole session activity based on the Queen’s Diamond Jubilee. I used it to build on some dictionary work we hade been doing in previous sessions as well as paragraph writing and report writing. We had also been talking about open and closed questions so I have used examples of each in this resource to see if learners spotted them (they did!)

We are based in the same building as the library so there is lots of information handily available about local events but I also had internet enabled laptops in the classroom.

Level
Entry Level 3
Level 1
Level 2
English
General literacy / English
Functional Skills English
Context
Leisure, Hobbies, Travel & Tourism
History, culture, museums, libraries