What is embedding?
The Department for Education and Skills (DfES) Skills for Life Strategy Unit (formerly the Adult Basic Skills Strategy Unit – ABSSU) offered the following definition in the context of its Skills for Life Strategy in March 2004.
Embedded teaching and learning combines the development of literacy, language, numeracy with vocational and other skills.
The skills acquired provide learners with the confidence, competence and motivation necessary for them to succeed in qualifications, in life and at work.
For the purposes of this project we have updated the definition by using the term functional skills to embrace ICT and the key skills of communication and application of number as well as the original Skills for Life:
Embedding functional skills into the vocational and academic curriculum:
a) recognises the LLN and ICT needs of learners that lie at the heart of all vocational training and personal development
b) integrates learners’ LLN and ICT development into the teaching of vocational skills
c) raises the levels of learners’ skills holistically to enable them to achieve and progress.