Any Functional Skills tutors around.....

[Bearnecessity]

Hi I have an interview to become a tutor and have been asked to prepare a 10 mins microteach for mixed ability Entry Level 3-1 English.What sort of thing could I do and what are these levels? Plus any other useful info you can offer would be much appreciated.

Functional Skills are the essential skills needed for English, maths and ICT, and are vital for young people and adults to participate in life, learning and work. ... Level 1 Functional Skills are equivalent to a GCSE Grade E-D, and Level 2 Functional Skills are equivalent to GCSE Grade C-A*.

Ok thanks.

Haven't taught it for three or four years, but there was a huge jump from Entry Level to Level 1. There are three strands and it was the writing one that was a struggle.

At Entry Level, I seem to remember just basic punctuation and some range of sentences was required. At Level 1, they're using a range of sentences and punctuation - for mixed ability, you could start with what a complex sentence is and move on to using a range of subordinating conjunctions. A matching activity with clauses and conjunctions where they have to put them together to make sentences would work.

We used Edexcel (Pearson) and everything you needed was on their website.

Bless you, I hadn't realised the three strand at entry level.

I might have confused you.

Yes, there are three levels within Entry Level FS - the first two levels are very basic.

Then there's Level 1 which is equivalent to the lowest GCSE grades. Level 2 is more challenging - it used to equate to a C, so probably a 4 now.

I'm not sure if your mixed ability students are all Entry Level or (more likely) if they're top Entry Level and approaching Level 1.

Ok,thanks for clarifying that seems to be a big difference between 1 and 2 then.

Definitely. I used to put bottom set 15/16 year olds through FS and most got Level 1. Level 2 was beyond a lot of them. Ironically, some got Cs in GCSE English Language but failed FS. Not many - mostly the dyslexic students.

There's Entry level 1, Entry level 2, Entry level 3, Level 1, Level 2

Cynderella is right, there is a big jump between Level 1 & Level 2 - but your microteach is aimed at Entry 3 - Level 1 isn't it?