{"id":13359,"date":"2022-08-15T12:12:43","date_gmt":"2022-08-15T11:12:43","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.devon.gov.uk\/providerengagementnetwork\/?page_id=13359"},"modified":"2025-02-06T11:55:59","modified_gmt":"2025-02-06T11:55:59","slug":"functional-skills-employers-guide","status":"publish","type":"page","link":"https:\/\/www.devon.gov.uk\/providerengagementnetwork\/workforce-development\/functional-skills-employers-guide\/","title":{"rendered":"Functional Skills Employers Guide"},"content":{"rendered":"<h3>How can English and Maths skills help?<\/h3>\n<p>English skills include the ability to write, read, speak, listen, and respond. Staff use these skills to:<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>Communicate with people who need care and support, colleagues, and other health care professionals<\/li>\n<li>Write and understand care plans<\/li>\n<li>Understand and follow risk assessments<\/li>\n<li>Fill in an accident form<\/li>\n<li>Complete a review of a care plan<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>Maths\u2019s skills include the ability to understand and use numbers. Staff use these skills to:<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>Record fluid intake<\/li>\n<li>Measure medication<\/li>\n<li>Calculate body mass index (BMI)<\/li>\n<li>Plan staff rotas and understand wage slips<\/li>\n<li>Manage stock levels<\/li>\n<li>Calculate budgets<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<h3>Why are functional skills important?<\/h3>\n<p>Functional Skills are crucial to ensure your staff provide high quality care and support. The impact without these skills could mean they:<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>Struggle to read and understand procedures and policies<\/li>\n<li>Struggle to communicate with people who need care and support<\/li>\n<li>Don\u2019t always take accurate measurements or readings leading to mistakes<\/li>\n<li>Are unable to write clearly and accurately when completing care plans, leaving handover notes, or filling in charts<\/li>\n<li>Can\u2019t make best use of information and resources available on the internet<\/li>\n<li>Find it difficult to achieve vocational qualifications<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p><em>Table of the different awards <\/em><\/p>\n<div class=\"table-scroll\"><table style=\"height: 120px\">\n<tbody>\n<tr style=\"height: 24px\">\n<td style=\"height: 24px;width: 991px\" width=\"166\"><strong>Functional Skills level<\/strong><\/td>\n<td style=\"height: 24px;width: 1021px\" width=\"172\"><strong>GCSE Equivalent<\/strong><\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<tr style=\"height: 24px\">\n<td style=\"height: 24px;width: 991px\" width=\"166\">Entry level 1<\/td>\n<td style=\"height: 24px;width: 1021px\" width=\"172\">Below GCSE<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<tr style=\"height: 24px\">\n<td style=\"height: 24px;width: 991px\" width=\"166\">Entry levels 2 &amp; 3<\/td>\n<td style=\"height: 24px;width: 1021px\" width=\"172\">Below GCSE<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<tr style=\"height: 24px\">\n<td style=\"height: 24px;width: 991px\" width=\"166\">Level 1<\/td>\n<td style=\"height: 24px;width: 1021px\" width=\"172\">Grades 1-3 (fail)<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<tr style=\"height: 24px\">\n<td style=\"height: 24px;width: 991px\" width=\"166\">Level 2<\/td>\n<td style=\"height: 24px;width: 1021px\" width=\"172\">Grades 4-9 (pass)<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<\/tbody>\n<\/table><\/div>\n<h3>Embedding functional skills in your workplace culture<\/h3>\n<p>During your induction process<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>Assess ability on functional skills, use Skills for Care toolkits to help assessment<\/li>\n<li>Identify needs<\/li>\n<li>Career conversations, support to develop functional skills before signing on to further education<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>Supervision<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>Have regular conversations about support with functional skills<\/li>\n<li>Career conversations \u2013 e.g. opportunities to progress onto apprenticeships<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<h2>Resource hub<\/h2>\n<div class=\"content-menu\"><ul class=\"grid-x grid-padding-x small-up-1 medium-up-4 large-up-4 content-menu-container\"><li class=\"cell content-menu-item item-1\"><div class=\"content-menu-inner\"><h3><a href=\"https:\/\/www.bbc.co.uk\/bitesize\/topics\/zvrr97h\" rel=\"noopener\">BBC Bitesize- Maths learner guides<\/a><\/h3><p>Maths learner guides<\/p>\n<\/div><\/li><li class=\"cell content-menu-item item-2\"><div class=\"content-menu-inner\"><h3><a href=\"https:\/\/www.bbc.co.uk\/bitesize\/topics\/z488jty\" rel=\"noopener\">BBC Bitesize- Maths in Social Care<\/a><\/h3><p>Maths scenarios <\/p>\n<\/div><\/li><li class=\"cell content-menu-item item-3\"><div class=\"content-menu-inner\"><h3><a href=\"https:\/\/www.bbc.co.uk\/bitesize\/subjects\/zmqj2nb\" rel=\"noopener\">BBC Bitesize- English learner guides<\/a><\/h3><p>English learner guides<\/p>\n<\/div><\/li><li class=\"cell content-menu-item item-4\"><div class=\"content-menu-inner\"><h3><a href=\"https:\/\/www.bbc.co.uk\/bitesize\/topics\/zdjj2nb\" rel=\"noopener\">BBC Bitesize- English in social care<\/a><\/h3><p>English scenarios <\/p>\n<\/div><\/li><\/ul><\/div>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>How can English and Maths skills help? English skills include the ability to write, read, speak, listen, and respond. Staff use these skills to: Communicate with people who need care and support, colleagues, and other health care professionals Write and understand care plans Understand and follow risk assessments Fill in an accident form Complete a <a href=\"https:\/\/www.devon.gov.uk\/providerengagementnetwork\/workforce-development\/functional-skills-employers-guide\/\" aria-label=\"Continue reading Functional Skills Employers Guide\">Continue reading&#8230;<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2278,"featured_media":0,"parent":3465,"menu_order":13,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","template":"page-full.php","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":"","_links_to":"","_links_to_target":""},"categories":[],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-13359","page","type-page","status-publish","hentry"],"acf":[],"publishpress_future_action":{"enabled":false,"date":"2026-06-13 04:43:59","action":"change-status","newStatus":"draft","terms":[],"taxonomy":"category","extraData":[]},"publishpress_future_workflow_manual_trigger":{"enabledWorkflows":[]},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.devon.gov.uk\/providerengagementnetwork\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/13359","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.devon.gov.uk\/providerengagementnetwork\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.devon.gov.uk\/providerengagementnetwork\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/page"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.devon.gov.uk\/providerengagementnetwork\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2278"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.devon.gov.uk\/providerengagementnetwork\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=13359"}],"version-history":[{"count":5,"href":"https:\/\/www.devon.gov.uk\/providerengagementnetwork\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/13359\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":15315,"href":"https:\/\/www.devon.gov.uk\/providerengagementnetwork\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/13359\/revisions\/15315"}],"up":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.devon.gov.uk\/providerengagementnetwork\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/3465"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.devon.gov.uk\/providerengagementnetwork\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=13359"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.devon.gov.uk\/providerengagementnetwork\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=13359"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.devon.gov.uk\/providerengagementnetwork\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=13359"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}