Free Resources for English Functional Skills

The guroo functional skills service contains resources for Entry Level, Level 1 and Level 2 English Functional Skills.

These resources are based around a number of Learning Challenges, each of which is a real-life scenario. These provide contexts for practicing functional skills in an essential mix of familiar and unfamiliar situations.

In English for example, these include picking your way through the minefield of property adverts, writing news bulletins for the local newspaper, or selling things on a well known online auction website.

Each Learning Challenge contains a number of resources:

Worksheet
Bright and colourful designs that you can download and print, or photocopy from the Tutor Pack. Every worksheet includes a glossary of terms and a number of related tasks, and is mapped to the functional skills standards as well as to key skills and ALAN curricula.

Click to download an example of a Level 1 English worksheet from the “Pharaoh’s Revenge” Challenge.
Click to download an example of a Level 2 English worksheet from the “Home Sweet Home” Challenge.

Solutions
For every worksheet, showing not only the correct (or exemplar) answers, but an explanation of the underlying learning.

Click to download an example of a Level 1 English solution sheet from the “Pharaoh’s Revenge” Challenge.
Click to download an example of a Level 2 English solution sheet from the “Home Sweet Home” Challenge.

Interactive Online Tasks
All the tasks, solutions and learning feedback from the worksheets, available online 24/7 as interactive tasks that can be completed from anywhere, anytime. Great for Functional Skills homework.

Click to see an example of a Level 1 English interactive task from the “Pharaoh’s Revenge” Challenge.
Click to see an example of a Level 2 English interactive task from the “Home Sweet Home” Challenge.

Video
In a mix of styles, including some highly engaging material created by experienced Theatre in Education practitioners. Excellent for plenaries, these videos reinforce terminology and transferability of skills right from the start.

Click to see an example of a Level 1 English video from the “Pharaoh’s Revenge” Challenge.
Click to see an example of a Level 2 English video from the “Home Sweet Home” Challenge.

Podcasts
Audio files that can be played in class or downloaded to portable media players. Using a different approach and language from boththe videos and the worksheets, the podcasts provide yet another approach to explaining skills, their applications, terminology and usage.

Click to hear an example of a Level 1 English podcast from the “Pharaoh’s Revenge” Challenge.
Click to hear an example of a Level 2 English podcast from the “Home Sweet Home” Challenge.

Practice Questions
A number of online questions in different styles, reflecting the range of question types appearing in functional skills assessments. Attempts and scores are stored in the learner profile and are visible to teachers.

Click to see an example of a Level 1 English practice questions from the “Pharaoh’s Revenge” Challenge.
Click to see an example of a Level 2 English practice questions from the “Home Sweet Home” Challenge.

Please Note: the questions that subscribing customers see when logged in to guroo.co.uk are more “open” response than these sample questions. The examples here are limited to the question types available in VLE/SCORM type situations and therefore tend to be more “closed” response.

Lesson Plans
We provide at least 2 lesson plans for each Challenge, designed for use in typical one-computer classrooms and in computer labs. These can be adapted and extended by subject teachers, or used by non-specialists to deliver the volume of scenario-based practice that is necessary to achieve “functionality”.

Click to download an example of a Level 1 English lesson plan from the “Pharaoh’s Revenge” Challenge.
Click to download an example of a Level 2 English lesson plan from the “Home Sweet Home” Challenge.

… and in addition to all these Challenge-specific resources, there are other resources for Level 1 and Level 2 English such as interactive online activities, and longer practice question papers that can be completed online or on paper.

Functional Skills Standards Mapping
We’ve taken the functional skills standards for English and identified which guroo resources support each part of the standards - including where Mathematics and ICT resources contain elements that also relate to functional English. Customers get these as a set of A1 posters, but you can download them as a PDF by clicking here.

VLE Content
Guroo makes great functional skills resources for your VLE. We even supply ready-made SCORM packages for each Learning Challenge to make it easy to upload and maintain on any SCORM-compliant platform.
Click here for a sample SCORMed version of the English Level 1 Challenge “Pharaoh’s Revenge”.

Plus …

The guroo service is constantly growing (and adapting as the functional skills pilot matures). We are actively working on a number of key enhancements such as:

Companion challenges that practice the same skills in different contexts.
Companion challenges that are based around the same scenario - but at the complimentary higher or lower Level.
Supporting materials such as presentation slides and template documents that mirror the contents of the Challenges.

Subscribers automatically receive all new and updated materials as it becomes available.

Contact us to find out how your whole site can subscribe to guroo.