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Functional Skills Further Education

Functional Skills in Further Education –
Supporting your Functional Skills success

Helping learners progress with their next steps in study or into work

City & Guilds is committed to supporting learner progression and has over 50 years' experience of delivering maths and English qualifications and has been offering Functional Skills qualifications. since 2010.

Functional Skills are central to learning and provide progression to further learning, apprenticeships, employment, and other maths and English qualifications.

Our Functional Skills maths and English qualifications have been designed to help learners of all ages and levels, supporting them to confidently develop and demonstrate the underpinning and problem-solving skills needed in real-life maths and English situations.

  • Flexibility and support
    Functional Skills qualifications can support learners on a range of FE programmes. They can be delivered flexibly for learners on foundation programmes, apprenticeships, full-time study programmes and part-time adult courses.
  • On-demand model
    As exams they are available on-demand when learners are ready, either on screen or on paper, they can be used as a flexible alternative to GCSE for apprentices, or for short courses throughout the year.
  • Quality teaching, learning and assessment materials
    Our quality, teaching, learning and assessment preparation tools and digital resources are designed to specifically support our qualifications and are designed to enable your blended, end-to-end delivery.
  • Exam preparation materials
    We have a rich bank of exam preparation materials including our guidance for delivering documents, sample papers and mark schemes which provide familiarity with our paper-based assessments and assessments on e-volve. We also have Open Assess, our digital practice test platform designed to support learners prepare for on screen exams in an authentic environment. It allows tutors to schedule a review session with their learners to look at the feedback and marks.
  • Digital resources to support your Functional Skills delivery
    We have a range of digital support materials available, including a bank of multi-media resources and schemes of work on SmartScreen, and e-Functional Skills a digital learning platform that supports learners prepare for City & Guilds Functional Skills from Entry Level 3 to Level 2, taking them from initial assessment to exam ready.
  • Wrap around support from our team of experts
    Our wrap-around support offer includes support from a dedicated team of experts from our Pre-employment team and expert Technical Advisors. Our team is on hand to support you throughout your journey with us. To ensure you get the best value, support and guidance, we encourage you to join our regular monthly webinar series and connect-share networks, so that you can deliver with confidence, share good practice and keep up to date with any developments.

Helping learners to showcase their achievements online

We’ve also made it easier than ever for learners to share their achievements online, with a digital credential.

Other maths and English qualifications

Besides Functional Skills, we also offer other maths and English qualifications which meet the maths and English condition of funding and can be used to support progression to GCSE, sometimes described as ‘stepping stones’. We have over 100 bite-sized, internally assessed maths and English units which also form part of larger qualifications, and help to secure underpinning knowledge and close skills gaps, visit our 3847 qualification page for more information.

We also offer a full set of ESOL Skills for Life qualifications which may provide a better pathway to success for non-native speakers, visit our 4692 qualification page for more information.

If you are new to delivering Functional Skills with City & Guilds we have a monthly ‘New to working with us’ sessions to support you. You can also sign up for our monthly webinars and our connect-share-network sessions with the Technical Advisors. Visit our events page to register.

Learn more about our digital resources for Functional Skills.

Explore our range of digital credentials available for Functional Skills.