Hello and welcome to Pearson’s Functional Skills blog for June 2021. This month Pearson has been getting practitioners to ask questions of our Chairs of English Functional Skills, the chief examiners, if you will. We also included the Head of Functional Skills Assessment as well, we didn’t want anyone to feel left out. We have quite a few questions to get through, so let’s crack on with it.
We can confirm that we will be continuing with this into the next year. If this is something you have not yet explored as an option for your learners, we have guidance on our website for Level 1 and 2 and Entry Level.
The key here is that words are not counted by our examiners, they are there as a guidance. That being said, short answers are very likely to be self-penalising, in that it is unlikely that a very short response will contain sufficient appropriate and/or effective detail to be awarded a higher band mark. Learners should therefore be encouraged to develop their responses to include detail. Really, they should be expanding on the bullet points we provide.
The simple answer is no, the work is marked holistically, rather than there being a set penalty for particular errors and that L1 and L2 Writing is marked without explicit reference to the Entry spelling lists. Many Level 1 Writing markers will not have seen the spelling lists.
A judgment is made about which Mark Scheme descriptor best fits the overall quality of spelling in a piece of writing. The number and nature of misspellings contribute to this judgment, but spelling mistakes are not counted or classified.
Yes, I personally have taught English and maths for 15 years across many levels and settings and the chairs have had considerable, if not more, experience too. We need to remember that Functional Skills qualifications are not awarding organisation qualifications. The standards are set by the DfE and maintained by Ofqual. In terms of the questions, we are trying to ensure the contexts are as learner appropriate as possible. This is why we carried out research at the start of the development and earlier this year. We have FS learners of all ages and backgrounds and choosing topics that are accessible to all is a priority when designing papers. We have had a lot of positive feedback on the steps we have taken to ensure that the majority of learners can engage with our assessments.
We would not say best practice as other methods are available that work just as well, but this does help stimulate discussion and give the learners an opportunity to summerise at the end.
Our published SLA is 28 days and all tests are marked and returned within that timeframe. The SLA starts form the date we receive the test file (onscreen) or script (paper based). All tests are marked by an examiner and a proportion of those are reviewed by a senior examiner to ensure there is a consistent and accurate application of the agreed mark scheme. If we release a new set of tests, which we do regularly throughout the year, then we need the full 28 days to standardise the examining team, complete an initial quality review of each examiner's marking and set the pass threshold for the new tests.
Writing pieces are given one mark for Composition and one mark for SPaG, mirroring the specification, and it is these two marks that are available as feedback for centres. Teachers are best placed to assess learners' work formatively and focus individual learning on particular aspects of spelling, punctuation and/or grammar as appropriate.
The key thing is to make sure that assessors are aware of this requirement through training and regular meetings. Should an assessor forget or have technical problems, then we wouldn't demand that the activity was done again as this would be unfair on the learners. Centres should have processes in place to stop this happening again and should make their SV aware that this has happened.
It depends. For face-to-face assessments only a sample have to be videoed and so it would be possible not to video the activity (provided that it wasn't the only assessment). We require all remote assessments to be videoed and so the centre would have to apply for an exemption.
We have reviewed this requirement and adjusted it in line with Level 1 and 2. So a sample of learners is now required rather than al learners. Details are in the latest version of the ELFS QA handbook.
At last we get to the question everyone was waiting for. Entry Level Chair Triceratops, L2 Chair Iguanodon and L1 Chair Diplodocus, by a short neck.
If you do have any questions, drop us a line (christopher.briggs@pearson.com) and we will feature them in one of our blogs. Maybe, just maybe, leave out the dinosaur questions.
Chris Briggs, Sector Manager Post-16 English and Maths
