Core Skills

You will have gained valuable information from your consultation with stakeholders about Core Skills. This market research should have identified which Core Skills are important, and at which level. Using this market research, you will be able to decide how to satisfy these needs. You can do this by incorporating dedicated 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 as well as Unit Outcomes (ie without using dedicated Core Skills Units) is known as ‘embedding’. Whatever method (or combination of methods) you choose should be backed by market research and should be clearly signposted. Centre Tool 13 and Centre Tool 14 are suggested signposting tools.

A separate document: Guidance on Core Skills: Using the design principles for Higher National Certificates and Diplomas is available here: