Functional Skills Support Programme

The Functional Skills Support Programme (FSSP) is designed to prepare practitioners, leaders and managers to deliver functional skills, from developing applied learning to adopting a whole-organisational approach to functional skills implementation. FSSP provides training and support free of charge to all schools and post-16 education and training centres. FSSP also supports adult providers involved with, or planning to be involved in functional skills. Support for schools is covered by National Strategies (NS) and support for the post-16 sector is offered by the Learning and Skills Improvement Service (LSIS).

Regional Teams

Nine regional functional skills teams are in place, including regional centres and regional facilitators, who provide local support and free training for all post-16 and Diploma consortia. The teams lead the support programme in each region, operating from a regional centre. The purpose of each team is to link with the other programmes and initiatives in the area in order to be part of a coherent range of support, and to underpin the 14-19 reforms.

East Midlands Region

The East Midlands FSSP team is based at EMFEC. The email address is eastmidlands@fssupport.org and the helpline number is 0115 854 1605. These contact details may be used to book training or to address enquiries or questions to the team. Training is based around a series of functional skills subject or award-based modules and downloadable from either the Excellence Gateway or dedicated FSSP websites. Many education and training providers within the East Midlands have already taken advantage of this service to plan for their introduction of functional skills or to begin the transition from existing key skills provision.