Wider Key Skills
About this course
What is it?
Please note that it is no longer possible to register new learners for ASDAN’s Wider Key Skills.
Wider Key Skills (available in Northern Ireland only) are skills that are commonly needed for success in a range of activities in education and training, work and life in general. There are three Wider Key Skills qualifications available at Level 2:
- Working with others
- Improving own learning and performance
- Problem solving
Each skill is a stand-alone qualification and evidence can come from any context or activity, including GCSE, GCE, NVQ qualifications; work experience; employment; voluntary or youth work; and many ASDAN courses.
Read the full Wider Key Skills specifications:
Operational end dates
Please note the following important dates:
- ASDAN Wider Key Skills Level 2 – final certification 31 December 2026.
It is no longer possible to issue certificates for ASDAN Wider Key Skills Level 1 and Level 3 or to register new learners for ASDAN Wider Key Skills Level 2.
If you have any queries about what these dates mean, please contact qualifications@asdan.org.uk
Join ASDAN
To teach this course you must have one of these membership types:
- Qualifications
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Who is it for?
The Wider Key Skills qualifications aim to develop and recognise each candidate’s ability to apply these skills in ways that are appropriate to different contexts and to improve the quality of their learning and performance. They are intended for everyone, from pupils in schools to chief executives in large companies.
Facts and figures
- Following changes to UCAS points for all qualifications, each Wider Key Skill is worth 6 UCAS points for students entering higher education from 2017.
- Following amendments to the school and college performance tables in England, qualifications that do not rely on a written examination for assessment purposes, such as ASDAN qualifications, do not, themselves, contribute to the tables. There is however strong evidence that ASDAN qualifications improve performance in English and mathematics, which have a double weighting in school performance measures such as Progress 8.
- In Northern Ireland, ASDAN qualifications can contribute towards school/college performance measures. Download this information sheet for details.
Structure
Due to the generic and flexible delivery approach used with Wider Key Skills, no definitive delivery time (Guided Learning Hours) is specified. However, it is anticipated that each Wider Key Skill will take approximately 30 to 40 hours, based on guidance for delivery and funding at Post-16.
Download the standards for the three Wider Key Skills (Problem Solving, Improving own Learning and Performance, Working with Others) at Level 2.
The following documents can be downloaded for free:
Full qualification specifications
Assessment resources
1. Staff training
• The members of staff with overall responsibility for delivery must attend an ASDAN introductory workshop, webinar or an INSET.
2. Register with ASDAN
• You will need to have ASDAN Qualifications membership to deliver Wider Key Skills. Membership allows centres to purchase materials and access support from ASDAN, including regular mailings and updates.
3. Arrange moderation and purchase candidate registrations
Candidate registrations should be purchased and moderation arranged as you begin the qualification – individual candidate names are not needed until you are ready to submit them for external moderation.
The candidate registration fee covers the administrative costs of registering the candidate for the qualification, co-ordination of moderation and awarding/certification. External moderation can be requested for any date and will be carried out by post or centre visit.
4. Read the standards and general guidance
Download the Key Steps standards with guidance and general guidance documents from the course resources below.
5. Download assessment resources
These can be downloaded from the course resources below.
6. Check and internally moderate
The internal moderation guidance in the course resources below explains the purpose of internal moderation, what is involved, and how to record the internal moderation process.
Centres should carry out a rigorous internal moderation process before entry for external moderation to ensure that candidates have fulfilled the requirements for the qualification. This should ensure the only candidates entered for external moderation have fulfilled the requirements for the qualification.
7. Submit candidate names for registration
Individual candidates’ names and details must be submitted no later than four weeks before external moderation.
Candidates will be fully registered when this stage of the process has been completed. Registration lasts for five years.
7.a. Exemptions from CoPE units for candidates who have completed Wider Key Skills
If you wish to transfer credit from units that have been achieved within a different qualification, or claim exemption, please ensure that you read the information on credit transfer and the qualification’s rules of combination before completing the candidate registration and submission form.
You can claim exemption for your candidates from the CoPE units Introduction to working with others, Introduction to improving own learning and performance and Introduction to problem solving, if they have already achieved the corresponding Wider Key Skills qualifications. In order to claim exemption:
On the Candidate Registration and Submission Form, only list the units you are submitting for moderation, not those for which you wish to claim prior achievement or exemption.
8. Send portfolios for external moderation
About two weeks before your moderation date, your centre's Wider Key Skills coordinator will be emailed a copy of your candidate submission. Please check this form to ensure that all details are correct and inform qualifications@asdan.org.uk immediately if there are any errors.
Portfolios marked with an asterisk * have been selected for sample. These portfolios should be sent to your External Moderator by courier or recorded delivery to arrive no later than two days before your moderation date. Please send the requested sample portfolios only.
From September 2020:
- for all qualifications, centres are required to provide one of their assessment plans alongside their sample portfolios, which must represent one of the activities used for the current moderation
- it is mandatory that centres include records of internal moderation within the portfolios requested for sampling
9. Candidate results
After moderation, the External Moderator will send all paperwork to ASDAN Central Office. Once this has been received, certificates for successful candidates will be issued within 20 working days.
Costs
All candidate registration costs shown below are per candidate, unless otherwise stated.
| Item | Price |
|---|---|
| Wider Key Skills Level 2 (Northern Ireland only) | £9.95 (per skill) |
| Wider Key Skills Level 3 (Northern Ireland only) | £10.95 (per skill) |
Products can be purchased below.
Public funding for ASDAN qualifications delivered in the UK
Many ASDAN qualifications are fully funded by the UK Government.
Whether you are an employer, a learner or a training provider, the following websites will provide you with more information on the different types of public funding in the UK for ASDAN qualifications.
- England - Education and Skills Funding Agency, ESFA
- Wales - Qualifications in Wales, QiW
- Northern Ireland - Department for the Economy
Course resources
Wider Key Skills standards with guidance
Wider Key Skills specification: Improving own learning and performance Level 2
Wider Key Skills specification: Working with others Level 2
Wider Key Skills specification: Problem solving Level 2
Wider Key Skills: Improving own learning and performance Level 2 recognising progress
Wider Key Skills: Working with others Level 2 recognising progress
Wider Key Skills: Problem solving Level 2 recognising progress
Qualifications internal quality assurance guidance
Qualifications internal quality assurance cycle
Qualifications internal quality assurance pre-delivery check (with guidance)
Qualifications internal quality assurance sampling plan
Qualifications internal quality assurance feedback report template
Qualifications internal quality assurance (moderation) checklist
Qualifications internal standardisation meeting template
Qualifications EQA/external moderation sample centre checklist
Reasonable adjustments application form
Special consideration application form
Learning log
Evaluation chart (individual)
This evaluation chart can be used by learners to evaluate a six-week individual activity. Learners are asked to mark on the graph each week to show what they did and how they felt; at the end of the project the learner should join up the marks to give a picture of the whole activity. This resource is particularly suited to challenges in Short Courses, Personal Development Programmes (Bronze, Silver, Gold), CoPE and Wider Key Skills.
Evaluation chart (group)
This evaluation chart can be used by learners to evaluate a six-week group activity. Each member of the group should choose a different colour and mark on the graph each week to show what they did and how they felt. At the end of the project, each group member then joins up their marks to give a picture of the whole activity. This resource is particularly suited to challenges in Short Courses, Personal Development Programmes (Bronze, Silver, Gold), CoPE and Wider Key Skills.
Scheme of work template
This template can be used to plan and create a scheme of work for any ASDAN programme or qualification. Also included is a completed example showing a scheme of work for Module 3 of the Personal Development Programmes.
Self-evaluation template
This generic self-evaluation template can be used by learners to evaluate almost any group activity. Learners are asked to record how they felt about the activity and pick out the best and worst bits, before reflecting on what they could do better next time. This resource is particularly suited to challenges in Short Courses, Personal Development Programmes (Bronze, Silver, Gold), CoPE and Wider Key Skills.
Teamwork health check
This generic teamwork health check template can support a wide range of group activities. Learners are asked to come up with a list of agreed ground rules for good teamwork, then rate each group member's performance against these criteria. This resource is particularly suited to challenges in Short Courses, Personal Development Programmes (Bronze, Silver, Gold), CoPE and Wider Key Skills.