The government has said it expects all secondary school students in England to master the basics of English and maths. So its new test of school performance will be the percentage attaining at least ...

National curriculum exams should be scrapped in favour of new functional skills tests, a teachers' leader has said. Dr John Dunford, general secretary of the Association of School and College Leaders ...

The functional skills teenagers in England will need to get a grade C in maths and English GCSEs have been published for consultation. The move is in response to employers' complaints that even ...

To earn a C grade or above pupils will have to pass a new 'functional skills' test. They will have to show they can 'punctuate accurately using commas, apostrophes and inverted commas'. Currently, ...

Ministers were forced into a U-turn yesterday over plans to make teenagers demonstrate mastery of the three Rs to gain good GCSE grades in English and maths. Employers were promised in 2005 that ...

Under proposals, students would be required to take a separate exam in "functional" literacy and numeracy, including writing letters and working out a budget. They would have to pass the tests to get ...