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 aims to increase the number of people developing these skills to 2.25 million by 2010 and 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).

For more information on the Government’s Skills for Life policy visit www.dcsf.gov.uk/readwriteplus

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.