This paper seeks to address an important issue in Further Education English studies: where the position of writing lies within instrumental models of literacy and how this can be challenged in a Further Education context by developing a more critical, pedagogical approach. Exploration of this issue is realised through discussions centred on the notion of ‘Functional Skills’, which explicate how a focus on ‘text’ types and skills acquisition fails to take into account the students’ own literacies and socially-situated cultural resources that often lie outside of the dominant ‘system’ of school writing. Two case studies of student writing that are positioned outside of qualification-led assessment convention will serve to illustrate and emphasise the rich literacies that these students have command of, and are inducted into. The paper concludes by championing a socially-situated definition of literacy that offers students the opportunity to demonstrate their competency in language in a manner they are comfortable with.