Functional Skills

Functional skills are practical skills that help learners gain the most out of work, education and everyday life*

They can be offered at Level 1 and Level 2 and delivered from Year 9 onwards, giving students a good starting base for GCSE ICT or OCR Nationals.

A Level 2 Functional Skills qualification is the equivalent to half a GCSE.

It is recommended that you have at least 45 teaching hours to deliver the Functional Skills materials and prepare your students for the exam.

There is no coursework and students demonstrate their skills by sitting one exam. The exam is either Pass or Fail, there are no grades. Although the pass mark varies from year to year the benchmark is around 70%.

The functional skills criteria for ICT can be found here

*OCR exam board