Things I Have Learned – Gov.uk

The Skills Toolkit

So I had heard about the government had put together a place where you could go and learn some new things to help with maybe getting a new job. I only recently found a link to the site and decided to have a look.

All the courses on the site are free but they don’t count as a qualification. But with some of them you will receive a certificate to say you have passed the course. With the brief description of each item, it also tells you what the lessons could be used for in maybe a future job.

I was interested in learning some new things and maybe retrain some forgotten education. So I decided to try out the first section Practical Maths.

There are two courses in the first section. Everyday maths and numbers, units and arithmetic. They are being run by the Open University. So I went to the site and signed up and started the course.

Everyday maths is a course with maths that everybody should already know about. These are basic information that you would generally use in everyday life. Weights and measurements. Adding, subtracting, multiplication, division. A few others and my nemesis fractions. I don’t know why, but I have never been able to get my head around the subject. I don’t mean the basic stuff the difference between a quarter and a third and half. How many sections in a fraction to the total. What I am talking about is how to multiply and divide and other things like that. It’s all gobble di gook to me. So I thought what the hell I am going to try and learn it.

The course is set so it would take about forty-eight hours to learn. In your own time. You can always leave and come back and continue where you left off. But like myself, if you have used this math most of your life or have a basic understanding you should breeze through it. Each section has a description of how to do each task with little “try it for yourself” pages. My nemesis wasn’t too bad and I managed to get through it unscathed.

The test at the end is a set of fifteen question covering everything you went through. Myself being a bit cocky raced through it. A couple of times not reading the questions properly and had points deducted. Each question is given three points and you are given three chances to get it right. A point is taken away if you don’t answer it properly. I messed up a couple of questions. But still got away with 87%. The pass mark is seventy. If you aren’t happy with the result or fail the test, you can try again 24 hours later.

I decided not to redo the test to punish myself for being an idiot. Besides I was happy with the 87%.

When you pass you get a certificate and a badge for passing the course.

Numbers, units and arithmetic is the next course. A lot smaller. Should take you about five hours to complete. But this time the course is alot more detailed and this is where my nemesis came back to bite me in the arse.

Again, if you have a basic knowledge and have used this math most of your life you should be okay. If not you may find it a little tricky.

I was doing okay until I got to the fractions section. I was lost. Each time I thought I was getting it. Learning the rules. Something else came up and ripped apart what I thought I just learned.

I was sitting there for about an hour getting frustrated. Then my wife suggested going online and trying looking for a video that may help. I had thought of that before. But her saying it sort of gave myself permission to do it.

So after a quick search. I was looking for something on mixed fractions and found this wonderful channel on You Tube, called Math Antics.

This channel is brilliant. The presenter takes his time to explain everything to make you understand it really quick and easy. Fair enough he’s a bit weak on the jokes he tries input in to the videos. But that doesn’t matter because he got me to understand something I never thought I would.

If you or family are having problems with maths home work. Go to the Math Antics channel. You won’t regret it.

Any way back to the course. At the end of this there is another test. Consisting of six questions with the same three chances system. But this time you can redo straight after if you weren’t happy. I messed up on one question and got 94%. I was happy so I never went back. With this course you only get a certificate.

I would recommend this for anyone needing an extra leg up. I will be trying out the other courses to see what else I can learn.