Explain ways to embed functional skills in your specialist area.
Functional skills are skills we need to function in everyday life. ‘Functional skills are essential skills in English, mathematics and ICT that enable everyone to deal with the practical problems and challenges of life – at home, in education and at work. They are essential to all our lives. For example, they help us recognise good value deals when making purchases, in writing an effective application letter, or when using the internet to access local services or online banking. They are about using English, mathematics and ICT in everyday situations’.
‘This means that functional skills are;
• real skills
• for real audiences
• for real purposes’.
(QCA online undated).
My subject area is childcare and functional skills are important throughout childcare courses and will be developed throughout a course with the support of the tutor. It is now part of a tutor’s role to improve and support the development of Literacy, ICT and Numeracy.
Literacy
As part of completing a childcare course learners will have to write assignments of a high standard. I would support learners to achieve this skill by initially providing opportunities to complete small written assignments with constructive feedback. I then would increase the size of the assignment required. I would also teach a session on writing effective assignments before giving the learners a big assignment to complete.
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All learners are encouraged to give presentations as part of the course as when they go on to work within the childcare sector they will be required to talk confidently and appropriately to parents, other members of staff and organisations. I would promote this key skill throughout a course by first encouraging learners to speak out in front of the class in a small way, such as sharing their thoughts in an active discussion. I then would again build on this giving the learners more opportunities to speak in front of the class in groups to gain confidence before progressing on to an individual presentation. I would also give the learners advice on delivery of presentations. This will also encourage effective listening and general communication skills.
An important aspect of a career in childcare is to observe and record observations on a child. An adequate level of writing and comprehensive skills is therefore required to fulfil this. I would support learners to develop their writing skills by advising them on what to include for assignments/tasks, give them opportunities to practice writing observations and give feedback to enable them to see the areas they need to improve on.
Numeracy
Prior to the commencement of a childcare course it is usual that a learner will have already achieved a set level of numeracy. Numeracy skills are then promoted and improved upon throughout the course. This is achieved in several ways. For example learners will be required to design and implement Numeracy based activities for children in line with the EYFS. As a tutor I would deliver sessions on how to deliver Numeracy within the early years. The learners would also be required to deliver Numeracy based activities during their placement. The learner would assess if these activities were successful and I would have the opportunity to feedback on them also. This enables the learners to practice basic numeracy skills and as a tutor gives me the opportunity to assess any areas they may need further support in.
The learners will also be required to validate and interpret health results and trends when studying child development and child health. As a tutor I would initially model how to interpret data and then support learners to use and evaluate data independently.
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ICT
Studying on a childcare course creates lots of opportunities to enable learners to improve and consolidate varying skills in ICT. On a basic level learners will word process their assignments. This gives them the opportunity to practice and develop their word processing skills. Learners are also required to produce their own activity plan/form. In order to do so they would need some prior knowledge of using table formatting in word or would need guidance on how to do so. As a tutor I would first deliver a practical session on how to use computer programs to formulate tables. I would then support those learners who needed guidance to produce their own tables. I would also give them ample opportunity to practice this skill.
As part of the course the learners will be required to deliver presentations to the rest of the class. Learners ICT abilities are likely to all be at varying levels. Therefore in order to accommodate this I would initially deliver a session to show how PowerPoint can be used in presentations. I would then ask learners to deliver a short PowerPoint as a starting point. From this I could assess the learner’s ability and indentify areas for further support. I would give the learners opportunities to use and view PowerPoint and build on this to eventually ask them to deliver a full PowerPoint session.
Learners also need to be able to use and read spreadsheets when working within the childcare session. Spreadsheets are used to record various pieces of data such as assessments on children and records of observations. I would give the learners the opportunity to use spreadsheets within a session so that they can become familiar with them. I would also support and guide those learners who needed support to do so.
In conclusion functional skills will be promoted and developed throughout a childcare course. These skills will enable the learners to confidently fulfil their future employment roles. The skills they learn will also help them to succeed in day to day life. It is also important that tutors in the Lifelong Learning Sector have a good level of literacy, numeracy and ICT themselves if they are going to successfully embed those functional skills in their learners.
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