Core Skills

You will have gained valuable information about Core Skills from your consultation with stakeholders. This market research should have identified which Core Skills are important, and at what level. Using this market research, you will be able to decide how to satisfy these needs. You can do this by incorporating Core Skills Units in the Group Award framework.

Developing Core Skills in your learning and teaching approaches, and noting where this should happen, is known as 'signposting'. Assessing Core Skills during the assessment of Units (ie without using Core Skills Units) is known as 'embedding'. Whatever method (or combination of methods) you choose, it should be backed by market research.

A separate document: Guidance on Core Skills: Using the design principles for Higher National Certificates and Diplomas (377 KB) is available. Although this is headed 'HN', the same principles apply across qualifications.

The design principles for HNC/Ds and NC/NPAs state that there should be opportunities for learners to develop all five Core Skills across the Group Award. Section 5.3 in the Group Award specification is designed to help the Qualification Design Team map Core Skills development (304 KB) opportunities across the Group Award.

• Qualification structure
• Table of Contents
• Develop: Phase 2