This outstanding, teaching, learning, and assessment (OTLA 3) project in 2017/18, was led by North Tyneside Council Adult Learning Alliance (NTCALA). The aim was to identify and develop assessment for learning methodologies to promote learners’ self-belief and their capacity to be successful in mandated Department for Work and Pensions programmes. The project focused on assessing and tracking the communication skills of learners on two employability programmes. The team met each month to plan and evaluate their action research activity and designed, trialled and piloted two individual learning plans (ILPs) for each of the two employability programmes. The team worked collaboratively with learners and DWP staff to evaluate the effectiveness of the assessment and tracking materials. In designing the ILPs, the team focused strongly on the Education and Training Foundation, Effective Practice Guidelines. The new ILPs are now being used across their employability programmes and have proved so successful that learners have reported using them as prompts during interviews with employers.

Technical accessibility note: The ETF has edited and reformatted the organisational case study for accessibility with screen readers, but the appendices are as they were provided to the ETF and will not be fully accessible to blind or partially sighted people who use a screen reader.