In this Outstanding Teaching, Learning, and Assessment project (OTLA 2) in 2016/17 West Lancashire College and Halton Borough Council (HBC) wanted to improve the quality of their teaching, learning and assessment (TLA) in response to Ofsted feedback. HBC also wanted to increase aspiration and motivation in some of their tutors. They used growth mindset techniques to create a cultural shift from which shared organisational objectives were set.

The focus of Bury and Bolton colleges' outstanding teaching, learning, and assessment (OTLA 2) project in 2016/17 was to see if they could use their virtual learning environments (VLEs) to improve assessment outcomes. They created differentiated tasks to support students to learn at their own pace and get immediate feedback via the VLE. Pre- and post- testing found students' achievement increased by an average of 13.5%. This took course achievement to 10% above national benchmarks.

The project was based at Her Majesty’s Prison and Young Offenders Institution Doncaster. It was led by Novus working with partners including Nacro, Catch22 and other prisons. This Outstanding Teaching, Learning, and Assessment (OTLA) project from 2016/17, aimed to improve the quality of teaching, learning, and assessment by addressing poor attendance in education and work sessions in offender learning. The work included raising awareness of the importance of education to prisoners and staff, and embedding maths and English in vocational contexts.

This report is based on fifteen interviews conducted by the team into the topic of Innovation. They reviewed practices and successes both inside the FE sector and outside it noting the factors that seem to determine success. Three reports written by the contributors analyse the lessons learnt and point to ways in which Innovation might be improved in the FE sector.