We’ve improved our Functional Skills qualifications | NCFE

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We’ve improved our Functional Skills qualifications

Following your valuable feedback and a thorough review of our English and maths qualifications, we’ve made improvements to our assessments, resources and practice papers.

We're excited to announce that our new papers will be available to sit from Friday 17 October 2025. More details can be found on our Key Dates Information webpage.

The sample assessment materials for each level can be accessed here.


We’ve focused on three key areas:

Accessibility – we’ve made our assessments more accessible for learners to complete and demonstrate their knowledge.

Clarity – we’ve improved our approach to make assessments clearer for learners:

  • our maths assessments now require less reading, and we’ve removed the context from underpinning skills questions
  • our English Reading assessments now assess more of the main points of a text, with more variety in the question types. At Level 1, we’ve made big changes to the way we assess learners’ comparison skills, and at Level 2, to the way we assess comparison and analysis skills
  • our English Writing assessments at Entry Level now include our new approach to the spelling test. There are also new discrete punctuation tasks. At Level 1 and 2, learners will have longer to complete the assessments
  • we have new mark schemes that will support learning and teaching activities.

Support – we’ll have a range of new materials and support available:

  • our Provider Development team will offer new sessions and training for delivery staff
  • we have new sample assessment materials and a practice paper at each level, with more to come soon
  • our External Quality Assurance team is here to support with any queries you may have

We are launching new learning and teaching resources to support the delivery of the improved qualifications.

  • The resources will cover all levels, and each will feature a detailed scheme of work covering all 55 guided learning hours of the curriculum.
  • Comprehensive PowerPoint documents will be available to allow you to run 2-hour sessions with class activities and embedded videos, some with AI-powered presenters.
  • Entry Level learners will have access to workbooks supporting learning for sessions, and new end-of-topic project workbooks to consolidate learning.
  • At Levels 1 and 2, comprehensive learner workbooks cover the whole curriculum.
  • In order to differentiate between new and old design sample assessments in SecureClient, we have added a suffix called 'New Design' which will be in the design of the new assessment papers. 

Get in touch

Contact a member of our team to find out more about our Functional Skills qualifications:

Area of interest: *

Summary of Key Changes

Maths

All levels:
Layout of question demand.
Smaller, more manageable activities (no change in number of overall marks).
Removal of context from underpinning skills questions.
More variety in question types, for example, show a check of answer.

Entry Levels 1 to 3
Context vocabulary lists.
More scaffolding in some question types, for example, decision-style questions.

Level 1 to 2
Increase in number of multiple-choice questions.
Level 2
Reduction in questions combining all three subject content areas.

 

English

Entry Levels 1 to 3 Writing
Spelling test restructured into multiple-choice questions, and now part of the Writing paper.
Discrete punctuation tasks.

Entry Levels 1 to 3 Reading
More emphasis on assessment of main points of a text.

Level 1 to 2 Writing
More accessible mark schemes for both levels.
The duration of Level 1 and 2 Writing has been increased to 70 minutes.

Level 1 to 2 Reading
Level 1: more emphasis on assessment of main points of a text.
Level 1: more accessible assessment of comparison skills.
Level 2: more accessible assessment of comparison skills and analysis skills.

What will stay the same?

Maths English

The number of marks on all maths assessments.

The number of marks on all English assessments.

Vocabulary lists introduced in September 2024 will remain in place.

The number of source documents stays the same. These are regulated by OFQUAL.

The duration of all maths assessments.

The duration of the Reading assessments.

The External Quality Assurance process.

The External Quality Assurance process.

The results release process.

The results release process.

The data available to centres.

The data available to centres.

The booking and results release process.

The booking and results release process.