What's new? archive

Updated T&L materials for the Care sector

We have updated the well-received teaching and learning workbooks for the care sector to include links to the Skills for Life standards, and have edited the trainer guide to remove references to pre-2004 key skills.  You can now download the revised workbooks and trainer guide, together with the other materials... more

New T&L materials for Retail sector

Following the success of the teaching and learning packs targeted at specific vocational sectors we have now produced a new pack for learners working towards the Retail NVQs and the level 2 skills in communication and application of number.  The pack contains 9 workbooks (covering topics such as Approaching the... more

Praise for work-based learning

Despite the headlines and media coverage of David Sherlock's criticism of the disappointing results from £2 billion spent on Skills for Life, the Chief Inspector's report isn't all doom and gloom.  Indeed the first paragraph of his headline findings on work-based learning praises significant progess:

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New initial assessment toolkit

Initial assessment is the one topic more than any other which generates passionate debate amongst providers.  Whilst most providers recognise the need for using a variety of methods as part of a planned and structured initial assessment system, they also see a dearth of useful, practical tools.  This has resulted... more

Functional skills - your questions answered

DfES has published issue 1 on the Functional Skills Update.  It can be downloaded from the DfES website 14 - 19 gateway.  Look for the 25th October link on functional skills in the 'latest news' panel on the right hand side of the page.

Functional skills consultation

QCA have published the draft functional skills standards for English, maths and ICT on their website.  This is an important piece of work which will impact on many areas of teaching, training and development.  Between now and the end of March QCA are seeking comments from as many... more

New section added to this website

A new 'guidance' page has been added to the Standards, Guidance and Policy section of the website.  The new section is on DfES guidance and will provide links and downloads to useful information from DfES.  The first two articles about Functional Skills and Specialised Diplomas have already been posted.  more

The Leitch Report

Many of you will have heard of the publication of the Leitch Report. This is the independent review of skills commissioned by the Government which published its final report in early December. The report is hosted on the... more

The KSSP for 2007/8

The new KSSP contract started at the beginning of April. This year, responsibility for the contract is passing from DfES to the Quality Improvement Agency for Lifelong Learning (QIA). Learning for Work has been involved in a bidding process with LSN and CfBT for the continuation of the Key Skills... more

The Key Skills Support Programme for 2007/2008

The LSN consortium (consisting of LSN, LfW and CfBT) is delighted to announce the arrival of its new look programme on behalf of QIA. As we have for the past 8 years, we will continue to deliver an up-to-date and wide-reaching package of support and development opportunities delivered by a... more

New regional course

Practical approaches to assessing key skills is a new regional course running at six venues in October and November.  Click here for more information.