Skills for Life

The aim of the Basic Skills Service is to support the individual literacy and numeracy needs of students on vocational courses. Most students have two hours of literacy support and two hours of numeracy support per week. Classes are tailored to meet individual needs, abilities and interests, with students taught in small groups. We also aim to develop the students' learning skills by encouraging self-reliance, initiative, personal responsibility, and consideration for others.

Literacy

In literacy, opportunities are provided for a wide variety of work, which includes:

Discussion on a range of topical issues, i.e. social, moral and current affairs
Reading of a range of material to extract information
Reading for pleasure
Writing for practical purposes — life skills, CVs and forms
Personal and creative writing
Improving and extending grammatical structures
Supporting vocational course work

Numeracy

In numeracy, we aim to encourage students to:

Have a positive attitude towards numeracy
Develop mathematical knowledge and skills in manipulating numbers and using mathematical information
Have the ability to interpret results and communicate mathematical information
Have confidence and ability to apply knowledge and skills in a range of contexts such as everyday life and in the workplace

The department is well equipped with e-learning resources. All our classrooms have now been equipped with interactive whiteboards, which means that students have access to more visually interesting teaching materials. Each classroom has at least two personal computers and many have three.

The Basic Skills Service offers a range of courses in Adult Literacy and Adult Numeracy to suit the individual needs and differing levels of ability of learners. We offer courses aimed at Entry Level, Level 1 and Level 2 in both literacy and numeracy.

Entry Level is further divided into three sub levels:

Entry 1
Entry 2
Entry 3

This enables the individual needs of students to be met, and allows for progression through the levels towards the Adult Literacy and Adult Numeracy examinations at Levels 1 and 2.

Entry Level

Entry Level qualifications are assessed by assignments, which are taken when the individual student is ready. Students have the opportunity to take another assessment should they be unsuccessful at their first attempt.

Level 1, Level 2 and Key Skills

Level 1 and Level 2 are assessed by online tests, which are nationally set. The online tests mean that candidates are able to find out their results on the day that they take their test.

The Level 1 and Level 2 tests in Adult Numeracy and Literacy are the same tests as the Key Skills tests in Application of Number and Communication. Students who are able to make a portfolio of evidence have the opportunity to gain Key Skills awards in Application of Number or Communication at Levels 1 and 2.

ICT

ICT is offered to learners wishing to develop their expertise for use in their normal working life. Dependent upon initial entry standard there is scope to progress from Entry Level through to Levels 1 and 2.

Use of communicative technologies
Use of ICT to find, display and communicate information
Software development in Microsoft Office and web design
Encouragement of text processing skills
Use of ICT to aid learners in their occupational areas
Vocational qualifications available to meet individual needs