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The qualification page is full of all the information you need to deliver this qualification.

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The qualification page is full of all the information you need to deliver this qualification.

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The qualification page is full of all the information you need to deliver this qualification.

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The qualification page contains the information you need to deliver this qualification.

# data[].attributes.body
The qualification page is full of all the information you need to deliver this qualification.

# data[].attributes.body
The qualification page is full of all the information you need to deliver this qualification.

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The qualification page contains the information you need to deliver this qualification.

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The qualification page is full of all the information you need to deliver this qualification.

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NCFE English and maths bite size units personal intervention for your learners

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NCFE English and maths bite size units personal intervention for your learners

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A video for our customers showing how you can use these qualifications as part of your curriculum to offer personal intervention to your learners.

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NCFE English and maths bite size units   personal intervention for your learners

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This chart shows how the unit qualifications make up the themed awards and certificates

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This chart shows how the unit qualifications make up the themed awards and certificates.

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A snappy video giving you a headline measure of the qualifications.

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A snappy video that gives you a headline measure of the qualifications.

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Using the Skills Builder platform you will have access to a host of resources that could support your learner's portfolio of evidence.

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Skills Assessment

Tools and resources

As part of our commitment to shaping smarter learning, we proudly offer skills assessment and diagnostic tools.

Whether you're delivering apprenticeships, traineeships or employment programmes, we have initial assessment tools and learning resources to support your provision and set your learners up for success.
Please stay on this page to web chat with Dzintra, our skills assessment expert, who can support you with finding what you need and logging into the different platforms.

Skills Builder is a fantastic tool for initial and diagnostic assessments, and for supporting learners to develop their English and maths capability.

Matthew Smith, Learning Systems Manager, Realise

Taking a unique approach

Our unique diagnostics, resources and summative assessments can transform how education providers approach Functional Skills, GCSE and the employability skills development of learners, providing accurate visibility of individuals' skills and their progress.

Our tools include:

Skills Builder - English and maths eLearning, resources and assessments

Skills Review - Online skills analysis tool and progress tracking for apprentices

Skills Work - Employability skills tests and development

Skills Portfolio - Digital skills portfolio for qualifications, apprenticeships and training

For a free demo of any of our products, complete the form below or contact us on 0300 102 1023.

Products in detail

The complete e-learning solution for Functional Skills and GCSE
Skills Builder is a comprehensive initial assessment and diagnostic solution. It enables providers to develop learners' skills with industry-leading assessments and access to the highest quality curriculum, while collecting the data and evidence needed to demonstrate compliance and learner progression. It also features our One Assessment tool that assesses learners' English and maths levels in only 30 minutes.

Achieve apprenticeship success
Skills Review is a self-assessed skills gap analysis tool that enables learners and employers to review and input recognised prior learning. It assesses an individual's abilities at the beginning of their apprenticeship to set them up for success, and measures their readiness for end-point assessment (EPA).

Measure core employability skills
Designed in partnership with employability practitioners and adult education specialists, Skills Work is a psychometric test that measures learners' core employability skills. Learners then receive a tailored learning plan based on their skills gaps, supporting them to improve in vital areas to achieve success in life and work.

A bespoke learning solution
Designed for anyone undertaking training, Skills Portfolio is a customisable e-portfolio that manages the end-to-end learner journey. Built to each learner's specific qualification, apprenticeship or training plan, it allows providers to monitor progress, assess remotely and manage quality assurance.

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As part of our commitment to shaping smarter learning, we proudly offer skills assessment and diagnostic tools. Whether you're delivering apprenticeships, traineeships or employment programmes, we have initial assessment tools and learning resources to support your provision and set your learners up for success.

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Our Functional Skills teaching resources map over to most of the unit areas and the worksheets contained in them can be used as evidence.

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NCFE is a national Awarding Organisation, passionate about designing, developing and certificating diverse, nationally recognised qualifications and awards...

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The sample paper is available to use for your learners to provide suitable evidence. All mark schemes can be downloaded from the qualification pages.

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The sample paper is available to use for your learners to provide suitable evidence. All mark schemes can be downloaded from the qualification pages.

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Thousands of different styles of resources are available for use in relation to these qualifications.

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Tes provides a range of primary and secondary school teaching resources including lesson plans, worksheets and student activities for all curriculum subjects.

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The sample paper is available to use for your learners to provide suitable evidence. All mark schemes can be downloaded from the qualification pages.

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The sample paper is available to use for your learners to provide suitable evidence. All mark schemes can be downloaded from the qualification pages.

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Free online access to a host of maths resources from Entry Level 1 to Level 2. While aimed at Functional Skills there are resources you could use in a learner's portfolio of evidence.

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Functional Skills Revision Resources, Videos, Exam Questions and Booklets

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Pass your Functional Skills Maths exam with revision resources, videos, exam questions and workbooks. Resources suitable for exams with NCFE, Edexcel, City & Guilds, AQA, Highfield and Open Awards.

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Why do I need maths if I am doing Health & Social Care?

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How maths relates to business learners.

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I am doing construction qualifications, why do I need to learn maths?

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I am being creative I do not need maths...?

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I want to be an engineer not a mathematician!

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Where does maths fit into hospitality?

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I want to be a footballer not a maths teacher...

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How can maths be relevant as part of my childcare course?

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How does English fit into these courses?

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Where is English relevant in these sectors?

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English in Business, IT & Customer Service

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English in Business, IT & Customer Service

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Look at how English is contextualised within the sector.

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English in Business, IT & Customer Service

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English in Business, IT & Customer Service

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Know how to write an email?

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Why English is so relevant in the care sector.

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Do you know how to write a formal letter?

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You will need to know how to use paragraphs in the creative industry.

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How do you get involved in discussions as part of your sport & fitness course?

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There are thousands of resources on the Education and Training Foundation flagship site.

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Excellence Gateway Feedback Survey

We are constantly seeking to improve the service we offer and we would be grateful if you would take a few minutes to complete this short survey to provide feedback to us on the ease of use of the Excellence Gateway and usefulness of the resources on it.

Welcome to the Excellence Gateway

The Excellence Gateway is the Education and Training Foundation's resources portal where you can search for or browse and then filter over 7,500 resources, covering a broad range of topics and including guidance, effective practice, teaching materials, research and CPD materials.

Note: Many of the resources contained here have been migrated from legacy sites that are now closed. These resources may contain useful information and ideas but references to policy etc will be dated. Please bear this in mind when viewing older resources. The date the resource was created is shown in the search results.

Search for resources

You can find resources:

using the search box above to find a specific resource by title, or to search for resources on a particular topic

using the Discover resources filters on the right hand side to browse by theme, subject area, audience etc

Click here for hints and tips on searching.

Save your favourites - You can create an account on the Excellence Gateway and then save your favourite resources in My Collection for future use.

Need help. Contact us using the form available here.

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You can find resources: using the search box above to find a specific resource by title, or to search for resources on a particular topic using the Discover resources filters on the right hand side to browse by theme, subject area, audience etc Click here for hints and tips on searching.

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The college have started using these resources to fully embrace maths & English learning for all learners. Check out what they have to say.

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Our office will be closing for the Christmas period from 23 December at 5pm, and reopening on 4 January at 8:30am. We will respond to any emails or calls we receive from you during this period as soon as possible upon our return. Please read more here.

Functional Skills ICT Online External Assessments

We have identified a possible issue with ICT Functional Skills external assessments on our online assessment platform. The issue occurs when an assessment is completed offline and impacts the saving of documents on the system. We are actively investigating this issue and working closely with our online assessment platform provider to try to resolve this as swiftly as possible, however in the meantime we ask that you do not download any ICT assessments for completion offline until we have found the root cause and resolved this issue.

ICT assessments completed online, including those planned for Remote Invigilation, are unaffected and can be completed as normal. Currently this issue is limited to those ICT assessments that are downloaded and completed offline. Our English and Maths online assessments are also unaffected.

If you have already downloaded an NCFE Functional Skills ICT assessment, please contact customer support to cancel and rebook the assessment. You can do this by calling 0191 239 8000, or emailing

We will provide a further update as soon as one is available.

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Learners use bite-sized English and maths from NCFE to progress

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Our office will be closing for the Christmas period from 23 December at 5pm, and reopening on 4 January at 8:30am. We will respond to any emails or calls we receive from you during this period as soon as possible upon our return. Please read more here.

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Want ideas on how to make maths engaging and some new lesson ideas? This could be the site for you.

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Making maths 'fun': we've all been there. We're about to introduce a new concept to our pupils and we really want to make it stick. So, what do we do? We craft a lesson that we think will lodge itself securely in our pupils' memories.
Something fun... Maybe a board game-based lesson? What about some over-elaborate resources designed to impress the children? Or how about something really exciting to stimulate the senses?

During our teaching careers, we have both used these kinds of strategies - always with the best of intentions. In fact, one of us even had take-away pizza delivered during a fractions lesson once.

It's an innocent and well-meaning approach. But after much reflection, we've come to see things differently. We believe that the idea that we "have to make learning fun" has been one of the most harmful and long-lasting 'edu-myths'.

In our opinion, it's time to replace 'fun' lessons with 'engaging' ones.

'Fun' and 'engaging' - what do they actually mean?

Before we properly get into it, how about a bit of etymology to help clear up the differences between 'fun' and 'engagement'?

Fun

We love that the etymology of 'fun' leads you back to Middle-English and the idea of being hoaxed, cheated or fooled. Because in a sense, that's what we aim to do when we design lessons with 'fun' as the starting point.

We aim to 'trick' children into enjoying the experience so much that they learn effortlessly and even without realising! It sounds like a common-sense strategy: we really want our children to be happy, and to enjoy their learning.

Some of us approach lesson-design from this angle because we've had it hammered into us during our teacher-training (or by our school leaders) that lessons need to be taught in a 'fun way' in order for learning to take place.

Engagement

Engagement has a very different etymological background; it is to do with making a pledge or entering into a type of contract.

Well, that's not worlds-away from where we're heading with this. After all, engaged pupils are children who actively participate in the learning process.

They enter into the 'deal' the teacher is openly offering: 'I'm going to bring this content to life for you, but you need to think about it, you need to wrestle with it and you need to work hard to remember it'. Engagement is a kind of 'pact' entered into by all stakeholders.

What does a fun maths lesson end up looking like?

Fun is seen as the precursor to learning, so the tendency is for lessons to have the mathematical content 'sugar-coated'... sometimes quite literally. Additional sensory stimuli might be used to excite or 'hook' the pupils.

For example, a common maths lesson idea we have seen shared online involves the teacher using sweets to teach a lesson on ratio... "For every green sweet I have one red one" (and so on).

After the sweets are used to teach the concept, the children are rewarded with the exciting prospect of eating their concrete apparatus. In a 'fun' lesson such as this, children are often kept well-entertained; the experience is joyful and probably fairly effortless for them.

It is important to understand that it is possible to be fairly cognitively passive while having fun.

What does an engaging maths lesson look like?

Getting children to wrestle with the taught content is the primary focus of this approach. Nothing is 'dressed up'; the content is unashamedly the main focus.

But this doesn't mean that this approach is dull. Teacher-enthusiasm is an essential ingredient here because we need to show the children that the mathematical content is worth being excited about.

In engagement-led maths lessons, explanations are delivered with zeal and precision, and the work set is appropriately challenging (but achievable). Children aren't allowed to be passive and will be expected to engage in the process and to work hard.

Pupils are likely to experience positive emotions in this type of lesson, but this is a by-product of having really learnt something and having been challenged.

Engaged pupils are actively thinking and participating in this lesson-design, which is hard to 'see' but may be reflected in their comments, their questions and the work that they produce.

'Fun' maths lessons or 'engaging' Maths lessons - what's the difference?

Clare Sealy warns against the fun-led approach, saying that 'the medium shouldn't trump the message'. She's referring to the way that memories are formed when we make 'fun' the medium of communication.

In fun-led lessons, 'episodic' memories are formed. These are memories based on a particular time, place and context - for example, using sweets to learn ratios. The issue is that episodic memories are very limited in how they can be applied to future learning.

Because the content learned has been 'tagged' with so much sensory stimuli, you'd need to be getting the sweets back out for every future ratio lesson if you wanted the children to remember what they were taught the first time (and even then they might just remember eating sweets...)

This is not to say that the teacher's explanations weren't good in the 'fun' lesson - but the excitement generated may well have been a distraction from the key points the teacher had wanted to make.

In the engagement-led lesson-design, 'semantic' memories are what we're after. A semantic memory is a type of long-term memory involving the capacity to recall words, concepts or numbers.

Most of the learning you have internalised throughout your life can be categorised in this way. For example, your knowledge of times-tables would be based on semantic memories.

It's unlikely that you have a thrilling memory of the day you learned that "4 x 8 = 32" but the benefit of semantic memories is that they aren't tagged with all that extra sensory stuff.

This means that the knowledge acquired can be easily retrieved and more flexibly applied in future situations.

As well as leading to a more favourable type of memory-formation, engagement-led lessons have other added benefits:

They reinforce the idea that the subject itself is of value.

Maths is a subject full of wonder and it's our responsibility to model a love for the subject. When we 'dress up' maths with unnecessary frills, what message are we sending children about its inherent value?

It's worth remembering that pupils' attitudes to maths can have a profound impact on their learning.

Engagement-led lessons are a lot easier to plan for.

Instead of spending hours on thinking-up incredible 'wow' moments, or preparing unnecessarily complex resources, our minds stay focused on what really matters: the maths! So, more time on selecting the right questions, the right representations and the right order of the small steps we're going to teach.

They are more inclusive.

A 'fun' lesson is often designed to stimulate the senses and let's face it - that means more noise and more 'faff'. We know that many children, including those with additional learning needs, don't always benefit from this kind of learning environment. An engagement-led lesson can have life and vigour to it - but it's not about creating a mad, sensory-overload scenario.

These lessons are better for behaviour.

When we go down the 'fun' route, children become conditioned to a culture where they expect to be entertained. This in turn means that when our 'fun idea' falls short, so does their behaviour. Children's learning behaviour is better when they are truly being challenged and when they feel the satisfaction of achieving something difficult.
Looking for an engaging, pupil-focused intervention to help improve your pupils' maths attainment?
Third Space Learning's 1-to-1 interventions are carefully designed by primary maths specialists to foster pupil engagement and interest as well as attainment.

Our maths specialist tutors also undergo a programme of rigorous training to ensure they can deliver and enhance our intervention lessons, to maximise their impact.

To find out more about how Third Space Learning could help your school, call 0203 771 0095, or try a free demo.

When are mathematical games useful?

Don't worry - we're not calling for a ban on maths games. They can be a wonderfully creative way of reinforcing pupils' understanding, but here are some guidelines in terms of using them effectively:

Accept that you might lose a lesson just to teaching the children the rules of the game.

It might be that the game you're planning to share will reinforce pupils' understanding of place value, but the first time you play it, you can guarantee some children will struggle to understand what they're meant to be doing.

One consideration for using maths games is that it might be best to have a small handful at your disposal that you teach the children early on in the year, and that you can therefore play again throughout the year.

Lay-down some strict ground-rules.

So often in games-based lessons, the resources become a massive distraction to the children, and behaviour slips. Dice clatter across tables and onto the floor, friends fall out with each other about equipment, or arguments erupt about who won the game.

You need to know your class here and be realistic about whether the game is the best format for the children you are currently teaching. If you do use games, be straight with the children about what you will and won't accept in these kinds of lessons.

Know that Assessment for Learning can be tricky in this lesson format.

When you're spending most of your time ensuring the children are playing nicely, it can be tricky to watch-in and listen as much as you would like to. And even if the children are really focused, the game-format is not always easy for establishing if children really are 'getting it'.

Be ready to stop the children at key points in the lesson to ask them questions. Share scenarios you've seen happening in the room and use these as effective teaching points.

Mathematical games can be an excellent tool for interventions or 1:1 work.

Because you can teach the rules of the game a lot quicker, you can then use the game as a tool to unpick gaps in their knowledge but also to build pupils' confidence. We've often found in the 1:1 format that mathematical games ease pupils' anxieties about maths.

Finally, pick your games carefully and have a clear purpose in mind.

There are some great games out there, and often the simplest ones are the best. Nrich has always been one of our favourite places to go for simple and effective mathematical games.

10 ways to ensure your Maths lessons are engagement-led

One: Be enthusiastic about the Maths

It sounds obvious, but we need to deliver the mathematical content with genuine enthusiasm. If we're not interested, why should the children be?

Two: Coherent lesson-design

We know that teaching for maths mastery means focusing on small-steps in a coherent order. By focusing on one or two key concepts and building up the complexity gradually, we raise the likelihood of all children 'staying with us' for the duration of the lesson.

Three: Effective use of representations

There is nothing more wonderful than seeing a child experience that 'lightbulb moment' in a Maths lesson. If we provide the right representations for the mathematical concept being taught, then we help all children stand a higher chance of engaging with what we're trying to explain. This applies to all age ranges!

Four: Value fluency and automaticity

We know that when children are fluent (fast, flexible and accurate) and when they know certain facts instantly, we free-up their working memories to do more. They can then get on with the stuff we really want them to do, like reasoning and problem-solving.

For more about the benefits of encouraging fluency in your pupils, try our blog on how fluency impacts on reasoning and problem solving skills.

Five: Ask great questions

Questioning is our greatest tool for engagement. It's not always about the fanciest or most 'open-ended' questions. Sometimes it's just about asking the right thing at the right time. One of our university tutors taught us that the best mathematical question is "why". He was right!

Six: Value 'maths talk'

We know that talk is crucial for understanding. Have you ever talked a problem through with somebody and found the solution before they could even respond?

This is the same in Maths lessons - when we give children the time to discuss, we help them to refine their understanding while also giving us a great chance to address any misconceptions we hear.

Seven: Assessment for learning

An engagement-led lesson has a simplicity about it, and this allows many opportunities for AfL. When designing your lesson, pinpoint some key times you will listen, observe or mark pupils' work.

It might be as simple as setting pupils off on a practice-set of just a few questions in silence. While they do this, you can be whizzing around, picking up on common mistakes and tailoring the next part of your lesson in light of what you are seeing.

Eight: Use variation effectively

Variation has two elements - conceptual and procedural.

The conceptual element is to do with how we carefully develop a pupil's 'schema' for a given concept. E.g. when teaching triangles, do you only ever show them examples sat on their bases?

Conceptual variation might involve presenting a range of triangles in different orientations or giving examples and non-examples and asking children to refine their definitions of what a triangle is.

Procedural variation is about how we carefully craft the order of our questions/tasks. E.g. avoid providing questions that allow children to fall into 'lazy-mode' where they can get the answers all right without really understanding the concept.

Each question you choose should give you an opportunity to dig-up, reveal and address misconceptions present in the classroom.

Nine: Mistakes are good!

Pupils will be more engaged in Maths when they feel safe to make mistakes. Create a culture where pupils know we don't laugh at others, and where it is safe to get things wrong. Celebrate 'good mistakes' and use these as opportunities for whole-class learning.

Ten: Discuss metacognition

For lessons to be engaging, we need children to play their part. So, make sure you talk to your children about good learning behaviours constantly. Get pupils to reflect on their successes and consider what they did to help themselves be successful. The more we can train children to be reflective about their own behaviour and thinking, the better it is for engagement.

Our blog on metacognition in the primary classroom has some great ideas to help you get started.

So, are we saying there's no place for fun in school?!

Of course not! Every child deserves to experience joy and escapism at primary school.

Our pupils are entitled to experience opportunities beyond what they're exposed to outside of school. But we must be honest with ourselves about the role of fun in our lessons.

Fun experiences should be valued for being just that: great experiences. But the idea that 'having fun' is a necessary precursor to learning is, in our view, a very harmful fallacy.

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Making Maths Fun: The Best Way to Encourage Learning?

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Making maths 'fun': we've all been there. We're about to introduce a new concept to our pupils and we really want to make it stick. So, what do we do? We craft a lesson that we think will lodge itself securely in our pupils' memories. Something fun... Maybe a board game-based lesson?

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The Education and Training Foundation (ETF)

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The Education and Training Foundation (ETF)

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The ETF run lots of courses and webinars to support teaching. They also have lots of resource and ideas so why not check them out.

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The summer issue ofthe Society for Education and Training's quarterly professional journal, contained supplements developed in partnership with the ETF, which we are pleased to announce as available to all.

The supplements explore developments in maths and English education and training, including:

making maths bear fruit for learners

boosting your knowledge to teach inspiring maths

learning to fall in love with English: How teachers can open students' eyes to its awesome agility

crafting the magic of unforgettable resit lessons

helping students with the most severe needs

and how to seize the digital opportunities within maths and English.

Download the maths supplement (pdf).

Download the English supplement (pdf).

The supplements also came with downloadable posters:

Dowload the maths poster (pdf).

Dowload the English poster (pdf).

If you would like hard copies of any of these publications please email Communications@etfoundation.co.uk.

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The summer issue ofthe Society for Education and Training's quarterly professional journal, contained supplements developed in partnership with the ETF, which we are pleased to announce as available to all.

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Another free resource available and one that has class projects available amongst others.

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Not in school?
There are problems and activities here that you can try at home.

The Assessment Tasks are a good place to start.

More notes on using the materials at home...

Bowland Maths aims to make maths engaging and relevant to pupils aged 11-14, with a focus on developing thinking, reasoning and problem-solving skills. In these materials, the maths emerges naturally as pupils tackle problems set in a rich mixture of real-life and fantasy situations.

Assessment tasks
Bowland Maths includes a collection of over thirty 20-60 minute tasks with progression guides to support formative assessment of progress in mathematical reasoning and problem-solving skills.

Classroom projects
At the core of Bowland Maths are 26 extended mathematical investigations called Case Studies. Each case study includes teaching materials to support 3-5 maths lessons. Many, but not all, include ICT activities.

Professional development
The Bowland materials demand different approaches to teaching, such as collaborative learning through discussion and reflection, self- and peer-assessment and the use of less structured tasks. These 7 video-based professional development modules help teachers explore these techniques.

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Not in school? There are problems and activities here that you can try at home. The Assessment Tasks are a good place to start. More notes on using the materials at home... Bowland Maths aims to make maths engaging and relevant to pupils aged 11-14, with a focus on developing thinking, reasoning and problem-solving skills.

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The qualification page contains the information you need to deliver this qualification.

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The qualification page contains the information you need to deliver this qualification

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Find further maths resources and digital tools to support delivery on our FS maths padlet

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Find further English resources and digital tools to support delivery from our English FS padlet.