Family Learning Festival and Skills for Life

Supporting Skills for Life

Skills for Life (SfL) are essential skills that can help families during their school, work and leisure time. They include functional English, maths and ICT. The Government’s original aim was to increase the number of people developing these skills to 2.25 million by 2010. However, this target was met two years early. The ultimate ambition is to have 95% of adults achieving functional literacy and numeracy skills by 2020. By functional we mean up to Level 2 (the level of a GSCE grades A – C)). In a Family Learning context these skills may be referred to as LLN (literacy, language and numeracy).

The national Get On campaign promotes Skills for Life to individuals. It encourages people who would benefit from brushing up on these skills to enrol on a course. Most courses are free and are delivered through colleges, learning providers and Local Authorities.

For more information on the Government’s Skills for Life policy visit www.dius.gov.uk/skills/skills_for_life

Why are Skills for Life important?

Improving Skills for Life are linked to a range of benefits for both the individual and society. These include:

• increased self-confidence and confidence to support children’s learning

• improving people’s lives by reducing social exclusion

• breaking cycles of deprivation in families

• improving a person’s employability

• improving skills gaps in the labour market

• enabling adults in the workforce to become more flexible and adapt to changing technological and work environments

Skills for Life and Family Learning events

Informal and one-off events such as Family Learning Festival activities are ideal opportunities to support Skills for Life learning, because they aim to be non-threatening, relaxed and fun. Family learning activities that involve Skills for Life can give parents/carers confidence to help their children with their homework and can help motivate them to continue learning and improve their skills.

There are a number of ways in which you can use your Family Learning Festival event to support Skills for Life:

· By embedding Skills for Life in activities

· By signposting attendees to further help for Skills for Life

See how family learning has inspired and supported the development of Skills for Life.

Other Skills for Life pages:

Supporting Skills for Life
Embedding Skills for Life in activities
Signposting further help for Skills for Life
Skills for Life and Family Learning in Action
National Skills for Life support and initiatives