Hi Dominic,
My name is Lucy and I manage the talent site. Unfortunately due to funding restraints we no longer have the capability to answer all enquiries personally. However, www.talent.ac.uk offers in-depth advice and a forums section, where I am happy to respond to posts, as more people can see and refer to the answers (hence also the reason I'm replying to the whole group, which I wouldn't normally do - apologies in advance if this post is not relevant to you).
In reply to your query, you may already be aware that regulations regarding the qualification requirements for teachers in the FE sector have changed and although there is no longer an "official" requirement for teachers to hold both a teaching qualification e.g. PGCE/Diploma as well as a specialist qualification in the subject they wish to teach....many employers still look for this.
In terms of ESOL, literacy and numeracy there are stand-alone level 5+ "subject specific" qualifications...often these are offered by universities and sometimes can count towards an MA.
The Institute of Education (UCL) used to offer this pathway, although a search on the current site suggests they are now only offering the combined teaching qual + subject specialism: http://www.ioe.ac.uk/study/IPGC_EDM99P.html However, it might be a good idea though to speak to the course tutor to find out what other options might be available. The reason I'm recommending this particular course is because I know the tutor personally and am aware that he has been involved in developing other CPD mathways for teachers of Maths, so hopefully is up-do-date on all the options out there at the moment.
You
can also search for other course providers on the talent course database*:
http://www.talent.ac.uk/courses.asp (choose "subject-specific qualification" from course type and Numeracy as the subject).
*This
is a good time to remind any course providers out there that would like to update their listings on the talent database to email me directly.
I hope that this has gone some way to answering your query, if you have any further questions please do not hesitate to contact me or you may find the advice service offered by the Education & Training Foundation helpful: http://www.feadvice.org.uk/
Kind regards,
Lucy