Free Resources for Maths Functional Skills

The guroo functional skills service contains resources for Entry Level, Level 1 and Level 2 Mathematics 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 Mathematics for example, these include things like getting your car ready for its MOT, arranging a weekend break for a group of friends, organising a football club and working in a florist’s.

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 Mathematics worksheet from the “Football Crazy” Challenge.
Click to download an example of a Level 2 Mathematics worksheet from the “Irish Blarney” 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 Mathematics solution sheet from the “Football Crazy” Challenge.
Click to download an example of a Level 2 Mathematics solution sheet from the “Irish Blarney” 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 Mathematics interactive task from the “Football Crazy” Challenge.
Click to see an example of a Level 2 Mathematics interactive task from the “Irish Blarney” 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 Mathematics video from the “Football Crazy” Challenge.
Click to see an example of a Level 2 Mathematics video from the “Irish Blarney” 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 Mathematics podcast from the “Football Crazy” Challenge.
Click to hear an example of a Level 2 Mathematics podcast from the “Irish Blarney” 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 Mathematics practice questions from the “Football Crazy” Challenge.
Click to see an example of a Level 2 Mathematics practice questions from the “Irish Blarney” 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 Mathematics lesson plan from the “Football Crazy” Challenge.
Click to download an example of a Level 2 Mathematics lesson plan from the “Irish Blarney” Challenge.

… and in addition to all these Challenge-specific resources, there are other resources for Level 1 and Level 2 Mathematics 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 English and ICT resources contain elements that also relate to functional Mathematics. 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 Maths Level 2 Challenge “Irish Blarney”.

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.