History
2002-2006
2002 220 Soft Ltd was formed in August of this year and launched a pre-ECDL IT Basic Skills program called “First Steps”.
2003 “First Steps” was launched in networkable CD format and in that year five authorities purchased the program, (Gateshead, Oldham, Newcastle, Leeds and Sunderland) together with Age Concern Leeds and Liverpool and four City Learning Centres.
2004 A further 10 Authorities purchased the program.
2005 From visits to Adult Education and Library Services we discovered that there were literacy needs from the ever increasing number of diverse community members. We also found that some users had varying sight difficulties.
To help solve some of these issues we increased the font size and added full human English speech.
2006 Not content with that we introduced community language modules and were one of the first providers, if not the first, to include bi-directional languages such as Urdu. (The other four language modules were Arabic, Bengali, Polish and Somali).
2007-2008
2007 Following feedback and requests from Library Services, 220 Soft launched the first electronic British Citizenship course called “Life in Britain” to support the many communities throughout the UK.
This again contained full English speech for the content from the handbook, with paragraphs broken into bite-size pieces, over six hundred glossary terms and Practice Tests that “mirrored” the Life in the UK Test experience.
2008 Following the success of the CD products, 220 Soft launched the online versions of “Life in Britain” and “First Steps”.
“Life in Britain” has been purchased by over eighty separate Authorities throughout England, Scotland and Wales to date.
Twenty two prison services have also purchased “First Steps” and “Life in Britain”.
2009-2012
2009 Early Spring launched the Core Curriculum Assessments “IT’s Numeracy” & “IT’s Literacy”. The programs allow tutors to create their own Assessments from Entry Level 1 up to and including Level 2 using the range of customisable features.
Later that year the Functional Skills curriculums were included in “IT’s Numeracy” and “IT’s Literacy”.
2010 220 Soft launched “IT’s ICT” for Functional Skills ICT Assessments
2011 “ScreenAbility”, Maths , English and ICT were launched. This suite of programs contained four ready made Screenings (Initial Assessments) for each subject. The programs also contained databanks of questions for each level together with their learning outcomes allowing tutors to create “bespoke” screenings.
2012 Options for different fonts and background colours were introduced for differing forms of dyslexia.
2013 220 Soft launched the “Universal Skills” program following feedback from library services of a high demand for support from jobseekers and benefits claimants. 220 Soft’s mission to encourage learning from many sections of the community to further themselves is an excellent fit for the government’s “personal resilience” agenda.
The third edition of the handbook, Life in the United Kingdom: A Guide for New Residents, was released in 2013. “Life in Britain” was revised to match.
2014 Re-brand of the “IT’s Range” of Assessments and “ScreenAbility Range” of Initial Assessments to become “Life Skills Assessments” and “Life Skills Screening”. These programs will complement an exciting new range of Initial Assessment programs due to be released later in the year.
2016 BWOL Launched with 15 library authorities starting to use the program in the first month.
2018 New graphic artist gave all products a major facelift and designed a range of information material.
July 2019 Due to the success of the 220 Soft range the company migrated its products to a new server adding more speed, security and plenty of scope for future expansion.
2021 A complete revision of product range was made. The products changed to meet users’ current circumstances. The LMS was improved
220 Soft Testimonials
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Your content goes here. Edit or remove this text inline or in the module Content settings. You can also style every aspect of this content in the module Design settings and even apply custom CSS to this text in the module Advanced settings.