
Functional Skills
What are Functional Skills?
Functional skills are essential skills in English, maths 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 can help us recognise good value deals when making purchases, in writing an effective Job or College application letter, or when using the internet to access local services or online banking. The key is they are about using English, maths and ICT in everyday situations.
Improved functional skills are linked to a range of benefits. These include: Increased self-confidence and confidence to support children’s learning - Improving people’s lives by reducing social exclusion and Improving a person’s employability.
Functional Skills Maths
If you need a maths qualification to improve your CV or boost your confidence, the Functional Skills maths qualification is a great way to show you can apply your maths skills in a practical way.
Brushing up on your maths will help you to:
- Calculate sums and shopping lists
- Keep on top of a home budget
- Manage your time more efficiently
Functional Skills English
The Functional Skills English qualification is a great way to show you can apply your English skills in a practical way. It will help you to:
- Read, write and improve your spelling
- Communicate easier both at work/college and at home
- Understand what leaflets, posters and newspaper articles are telling you
Ready to test your skills?
Try a sample Maths or English mini-test
Try a sample level 1 Maths test
Try a sample level 1 English test
Online resources
There are lots of online resources to help you with your EDT literacy and numeracy courses - check out some helpful sites below:
National Numeracy Challenge - This is a confidential, friendly, easy to use interactive website designed to assess and improve your everyday maths skills in bite-sized steps, while building confidence along the way. It takes a couple of minutes to register and you can then take the assessment test and set goals to aim for - studying at your own pace all the way. An excellent numeracy resource that's well worth investigating.
BBC Skillswise - is a highly interactive adult literacy and numeracy resource from the BBC with a range of factsheets, worksheets and quizzes which help adults to improve their reading, writing and number skills. It has a huge amount of resources - games, worksheets, puzzles etc. Try it here
Move On - is a national project funded by the Department for Education and delivered by Skills for Life. The project aims to help adults to brush up their skills and gain the National Certificate in Adult Literacy or Numeracy. There is a large amount of content to suit all levels of ability - including a substantial archive of practice tests for you to have a go at.