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NCFM Study Skills Guide

Functional Skills

Functional Skills are qualifications designed to help adults develop their essential maths and English skills in order to apply them in work and everyday life. Functional Skills qualifications are nationally recognised qualifications and level 2 is equivalent to GCSE 4 – 9 (A* – C).

 

FS English: Introduction to the different parts of the qualification

Reading

Main points, details and comparing texts

Identify implicit and inferred meaning

Textual features and devices and vocabulary (formality and bias)

Reference materials and organisational features

Fact and opinion

Subjectivity and objectivity

                 

Two characters pushing a wooden cube and sphere

Speaking Listening and Communicating

Illustration of person with lightbulb and media graphics

 

Presentation Skills 

Your potential as a presenter, the 1st attempt, knowing your audience, practising and preparation, visual aids, overcoming your nerves, giving the talk, FAQs.

Why develop presentation skills?

Presentations are a great way of communicating all kinds of information to a wide range of audiences. Effective presentations can provide an engaging way to present ideas, invite questions and clarify areas of confusion.

 

Presentations podcast

These are Student Wellbeing Podcasts. They are short and easy to follow guides on a variety of topics including assertiveness, exam stress and procrastination.

Writing

Writing style and writer's voice

Punctuation (full stops, question marks, exclamation marks, commas, colons, inverted commas, apostrophes (possessive and omission) quotation marks.

Composition

Words - improve your writing 1: words (recorded webinar - 26 minutes)

Sentences - improve your writing 2: sentences (recorded webinar - 33 minutes)

Paragraphs - improve your writing 3: paragraphs (recorded webinar - 23 minutes)

Using paragraphs - Examine how to construct paragraphs

Spelling and Grammar

Tips and tricks for spelling correctly - BBC Bitesize 

Conjunctions - Linking ideas together

Word classes - Grammar 

Plain English Campaign Basic grammar - parts of speech