Minimum Core and Wider Skills

Your Progress

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A common theme for all teacher training courses is the need for you to possess minimum core skills. You are usually expected to demonstrate level 2 numeracy and level 3 literacy to access the course.

Minimum core skills refer to numeracy, literacy, language, and ICT. They are closely linked to wider skills. These skills enable everyone to deal with the practical problems and challenges of life €“ at home, in education, and at work. They are essential to all our lives. For example, they help us recognise good value deals when making purchases, in writing an effective application letter, or when using the internet to access local services or online banking. They are about using English, mathematics, and ICT in everyday situations€™.

You are not expected to teach about minimum core skills. You are expected to embed the skills during your course delivery. These can be done using the following methods:

Discrete: taught and assessed by functional skills specialists as a separate topic from the main area of learning.

Partly embedded: taught by functional skills specialists and applied in a flexible way within the main programme of training or study.

Mostly embedded: taught by functional skills specialists with reinforcement and application through a range of purposeful contexts developed and applied across the programme.

Fully embedded: taught, developed and applied across the learning programme by all teachers using naturally occurring opportunities for functional skill development.