Digital Functional Skills delivery support

You can find all the relevant qualification information and support guidance for Digital Functional Skills here: 

• NCFE Entry Level 3 Digital Functional Skills 610/2807/1
• NCFE Level 1 Digital Functional Skills 610/2808/3 

The information on these pages will take you through to the qualification information pages, where you can access: 

• Qualification specification 
• Support handbook 
• Factsheet 
• Learner guidance 

Our sample assessments are available in-browser and are accessible using a weblink. There is no need to schedule or use a keycode.  

All content within the sample assessments is modelled on live assessments. Mark schemes for all sample papers are provided to allow centres to mark on completion. This allows you to identify learners’ strengths and weaknesses to ensure individualised skills plans can be made using the outcomes of the practice assessments.  

In-browser practice assessments allow learners to gain familiarity with the NCFE onscreen platform. Please note that these tests are simulation only, and therefore learners will not be able to fully complete the uploading of documents to the platform, as they will in relevant tasks when sitting a live assessment.  

Note: If you wish to mark learner responses from an in-browser practice assessment, responses will need to be captured at the end of the sitting or screenshots throughout to facilitate this. Any learner responses inputted into an in-browser assessment cannot be retrieved once the browser has been closed.  

You may also wish to consider our initial and diagnostic assessment tools to support your learner’s journey.   

Please find our sample assessment papers below: 

Entry Level 3 supporting documentation 

• Sample assessments 
• Mark scheme 
• Demo functionality tool 

Level 1 supporting documentation 

• Sample assessments 
• Mark scheme 
• Demo functionality tool 

Our new Digital Functional Skills qualifications (DFSQ) are now live

These qualifications are designed to enable learners to initiate and participate in digital and online activities safely in the workplace and in other real-life contexts, provide a foundation for progression into employment or further education and develop skills for everyday life.  

As brand new qualifications, NCFE have recognised the need to support Tutors in the delivery of DFSQ and therefore are providing free support from our Provider Development Team to centres. 

Whether you are a new or existing centre, when you get approval for DFSQ you will be contacted for a free on-boarding experience and will receive 3 free consultations through the first 12 months of delivery. 

NCFE recognise the challenges of delivering a new qualification and have worked hard to ensure we can support your delivery for go live. We have created a series of resources that can support tutors in delivering the subject content and that learners can work through in a sequenced order.

You can access all teaching and learning resources from the qualification information pages under the 'Teaching materials' tab. Below is an outline of what resources are available for these qualifications.

Schemes of Work

Downloadable for free

Each Digital Functional Skills qualification has a set of five schemes of work. Each scheme of work links directly to the five sections in the qualification. You are free to change the order of sessions to suit your learners' requirements and your preferred order for delivering the different qualification sections. The schemes of work typically have sessions of 120 minutes, excluding any breaks.

Digital Resource Packs (Entry Level 3 and Level 1)

Downloadable for £150 + VAT

The Digital Resource Pack is an all-in-one digital package of resources for tutors to support learners.

The package includes:

• 28 sessions for each level of engaging PowerPoints that cover all learning outcomes; all PowerPoint slides can be altered to allow flexibility for tutors to make more learner cohort-specific examples, weblinks, etc
• Explanatory videos embedded within the PowerPoints
• Associated worksheets and supporting materials for the sessions.

This digital resource pack is versatile and editable and is an easy way to support classroom delivery.

This pack combined with the freely downloadable schemes of work complete the set. These detailed schemes of work include all session timings.

Centres purchasing this digital package of resources can use them with an unlimited number of tutors and registered learners. The one-off fee will include any updates and revisions to the learning materials if required.

A sample pack is free to download.

Initial assessment, digital skills diagnostic and resources

Providers will be required to carry out a thorough initial assessment to determine the individual’s current level for Digital Functional Skills.

With this in mind, we have developed a new Digital Functional Skills diagnostic assessment based on the new national standards for Digital Functional Skills within our Skills Builder platform.

NCFE have worked alongside the digital subject matter experts who developed the national standards for the Department for Education, to make sure we provide the most accurate initial assessment and resources that will help support learners and apprentices on the most appropriate digital programme.

The new digital entitlement will support learners with no or low digital skills. New national standards have been developed for digital skills and will replace legacy ICT standards.

New topics within the Digital Functional Skills qualifications include:

• Using devices and handling information
• Creating and editing
• Communicating
• Transacting
• Being safe and responsible online.

The new Digital Functional Skills offer will be available at Entry Level 3 and Level 1. This will enable learners to develop the digital skills they need for a range of purposes.

Once the learner has completed their initial and diagnostic assessment, they will be able to access an individual skills plan with bespoke resources tailored to their skills gaps.

Resources include:

• Interactive and non-interactive PDF workbooks
• Supporting videos
• Interactive tasks
• Summative assessments

Foundation Level resources

For digital beginners we offer a bank of Foundation Level resources including 8 introductory workbooks with 8 accompanying videos. Once the learner has completed these, they will be ready to start the Entry Level 3 course.

Find out more about our new Digital Functional Skills initial assessment and learning resources by contacting [email protected]. If you wish to book a demonstration of the Skills Builder platform, complete the enquiry form.