About Key Skills
Why should I do Key Skills?
- Between September 2000 and September 2006, almost 2.2 million key skills qualifications were awarded.
- In 2005/06 alone, there were 692 thousand awards of key skills qualifications.
- Of these, 522 thousand were for the first three key skills, up 19 per cent on the previous year.
- 170 thousand were for the wider key skills, up 61 per cent on the previous year
Can you afford to be left out?
There are three main reasons why you will find it helpful to do key skills.
- The first reason is that they will help you develop the skills that you need to get good grades in the qualifications for which you are studying now, whether they are GCSEs, AS or A levels, NVQs, technical certificates or any other qualification.
- The second reason is the value they will have when you apply for a job or for university.
- The third reason is their value when you are at work, in training, or studying for a degree.
The First reason
Key skills underpin everything you do, at school, at college, at work and at home.
- You are communicating all the time.
- You use ICT more and more every day.
- Numbers are at the heart of much of what you do at school, at college, at home and at work.
- You will know people who work well with others, are well organised, and seem to be able to tackle their problems effectively. They are the people who get on best in their studies, get the good grades, and get on well at work and in life in general.
That's the first reason for doing key skills: if you get better at them, you will get better results in your GCSEs, A levels, or NVQs and technical certificates. If you can:
- get better at discussion, speaking, listening and writing
- find and process information in all its forms
- use numbers more confidently and
- get the best out of ICT
you will get better grades, whatever subjects you are doing.
Similarly:
- Improving Own Learning and Performance helps you learn how to manage your time and your work or study programme
- Working with Others shows you how to get the best out of working in groups and teams
- Problem Solving helps you develop a systematic approach to tackling the problems, large and small, that will always crop up in your studies, work and everyday life.
Key skills are really not so new. You are using them already, all the time. What's new is that you are being given the chance to get better at them and to get a qualification that shows how good you are.
The Second reason
Applying for a job
In recent surveys of employers, they said that they were looking for applicants who:
- can communicate effectively, including with customers
- can work in teams, with good interpersonal skills
- can solve problems
- are numerate
- have good ICT skills
- are willing and able to learn
- are flexible in their approach to work.
That sounds pretty much like the key skills, doesn't it?
If you aim to do an apprenticeship when you leave school or college, you will find that key skills are compulsory. As part of an Apprenticeship, you have to get Communication and Application of Number at Level 1, plus any other key skills that your particular apprenticeship framework requires. For an Advanced Apprenticeship, you have to get those two key skills at Level 2, plus any others that your particular framework requires. So it must make sense to get them “in the bag” before you start the training programme, and it will certainly help with your application.
Applying to university
Key skills can also help you get into university.
There are UCAS points for all six key skills, as follows:
Level 2 10 points
Level 3 20 points
Level 4 30 points
So, if you get three key skills at Level 3, you will have 60 points, which is the same points value as an AS at grade A or an A level at grade D.
Evidence of your key skills achievements is specifically called for in Section 7 of the UCAS form.
Most universities emphasise the value of key skills in their entry profiles, particularly Communication and Improving Own Learning and Performance, even if they don't always use the same names for them. Many degree courses include key skills development, and some universities find that they have to lay on special courses to help their students get up to the standard of English, Maths and ICT that they need. If you have achieved key skills, you are less likely to have to attend these courses.
The Third reason
This takes us back to the first reason. There is plenty of evidence, and in any case it is common sense, that people who are good at communicating (both in writing and in talking) and at handling numbers and ICT, work well with other people, are well organised, and can tackle the problems that life throws at you all the time, will be both happier and more successful.
But I've already got GCSEs in English and Maths. What's different about key skills?
The difference is in how you use them. What you learned in GCSE English, Maths and maybe ICT may have helped with your other subjects, and with your life in general, but that wasn't their main purpose. The point of key skills is that you apply them in your other studies and in your work, to get results. You use key skills with a purpose – to get things done. GCSEs give you the underpinning techniques; key skills show you how to use them.
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What are Key Skills?