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 The Basic Skills Agency is involved in many initiatives that help raise standards of literacy and numeracy. Here are just some of them.
The Quality Mark
The Agency works in partnership with 152 LEAs to award a Quality Mark to schools that meet minimum standards in the teaching of literacy and numeracy. So far over 3,000 schools have gained the Quality Mark.
To get the Quality Mark schools have to have an action plan in place setting out what they were going to do to raise standards. They also have to assess the basic skills needs of their pupils, set targets, develop learning plans, review progress, train staff, inform and try to involve parents, use a variety of teaching styles and materials and monitor what difference they were making in terms of literacy and numeracy.
More information about the award can be found at www.qmark.basic-skills.co.uk
Developing Effective Practice
The Agency has a key role in disseminating good practice in basic skills teaching. It has commissioned studies that share examples of what works in schools that are particularly successful at tackling difficult issues.
The Agency has so far published several of these studies by Graham Frater, a former HMI, describing effective approaches to issues such as the gap between girls and boys achievements in reading and writing and the impact of transition from primary to secondary.
The Agency has a full publishing programme of resources for teachers, parents and those involved in basic skills provision.
More information on this project can be found at http://www.basic-skills.co.uk/site/page.php?cms=4
Other Projects
The Basic Skills Agency is also managing other projects on behalf of the Department for Education and Skills. These include:
- Financial Literacy - a programme designed to help adults improve their financial literacy
More information on this project can be found at http://www.money-bsa.org.uk/index.php
- Step into Learning - a programme that trains nursery staff to recognise parents or carers with basic skills needs and signpost them towards local courses
More information on this project can be found at http://www.stepintolearning.org/
- Link Up - a programme that trains community volunteers in deprived areas to support adults with literacy, numeracy and language needs.
More information on this project can be found at http://www.linkup-volunteers.org.uk/
Consultancy
The Basic Skills Agency offers consultancy on how to improve standards of literacy, language and numeracy. We offer consultancy to four main types of organisations. These are
- LEAs;
- Local Learning and Skills Councils;
- private and public sector employers and trade unions;
- voluntary and community orgnanisations;
- adult basic skills providers including colleges and adult consultation services.
We try to make sure that we provide a made-to-measure service for a specific organisation - we don't have a standard template. We try to act as an indepedent sounding board by helping to review progress, advising on how to deal with particular areas of concern and suggesting improvements. For more information on our consultancy work please email consultancy@basic-skills.co.uk
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