Teaching, Learning and Assessment Improvement Strategy
1. Purpose
The purpose of this strategic plan is to set out clearly Newcastle City Learning’s (NCLs) commitment to delivery of the services’ strategic plan, and in particular:
"To provide outstanding teaching, learning and assessment to enable all learners to develop new knowledge, skills and behaviours which will allow them to learn, improve and grow."
2. Strategic Context
The Teaching, Learning and Assessment Improvement Strategy builds upon the organisation’s vision to enable Newcastle city residents to grow and thrive by providing high-quality, relevant development opportunities, making a difference to the employment chances and lives of all our learners.
The Teaching, Learning and Assessment Improvement strategic plan extends to all Newcastle City Learning provision.
3. Overall aims of the Teaching, Learning and Assessment Improvement Strategy
To:
- Ensure that all our learners receive good or better learning experiences.
- Ensure that each of our learners benefit from an effective and enjoyable learning experience that meets their individual needs and supports them to become confident and prosperous citizens.
- Develop and maintain highly professional, learner-focused, skilled and effective teaching staff within an ethos of continuous improvement.
- Support our learners to become effective learners.
- Develop and enhance employability skills including transferable skills and professional behaviours ensuring that our learners move closer to the jobs market.
4. Strategies to ensure the delivery of good and outstanding teaching, learning and assessment experiences for all students
4.1 Curriculum developments are informed by stakeholders and employers
To provide teaching, learning and assessment opportunities for learners which are destination driven, our senior leads and curriculum leaders will ensure that curriculum developments are informed by stakeholders and employers and information about local jobs and opportunities. Curriculum leaders will develop and maintain good working relationships with our partners to ensure learning opportunities are up to date and relevant.
4.2 Develop strategies that support independent learning and equip learners to become effective learners
NCL will support learners to develop independent working and self-management skills. Our curriculum will embed the development of core effective learning behaviours to ensure that our learners can make the most out of all learning opportunities and be successful learners when they leave the college.
4.3 Develop and enhance employability skills including transferable and work-related skills in order to enhance the employability and progression of our learners
Staff will embed opportunities to develop employability skills and professional behaviours, including the development of maths and English into learning programmes to prepare learners for the world of work. The college will ensure that teachers are up to date with their knowledge of industry standards and will ensure that facilities and equipment mirror those standards, wherever possible.
In addition, on all programmes for young learners, NCL will provide all students with relevant work experience opportunities to develop and enhance their work-related skills and knowledge, preparing them to be job ready.
4.4 Recruitment with integrity
A comprehensive recruitment process has been established to ensure the service attracts suitable teachers for the role of delivery of our curriculum.
All new candidates must demonstrate credibility to teach or assess in the curriculum area where the delivery is to take place. The service requirement is in line with the national requirement of a minimum of a level 3 qualification, or relative vocational knowledge and/or experience where appropriate. In some instances, a minimum of a Degree qualification in a relative subject area is required. However, in some instances we may take on those with relevant vocational knowledge and experience and commit to training those individuals as tutors.
4.5 Support for new curriculum staff
All new staff, employed by NCL, are supported by their Curriculum Managers as new tutors to embed into the organization. They may also draw on support from our team of Lead Practitioners for more practical support who will act as mentors/coaches to support them.
Sessional staff will be visited within the first full term of delivery and are encouraged to engage in any continuous professional development opportunities available within the service. Attendance payments will be paid.
4.6 Appropriate initial teacher education qualifications
The service requires all curriculum delivery staff to work towards appropriate initial teacher training qualifications in respect of their roles and responsibilities within the organisation. Appropriate initial teacher training and certification should be obtained within 3 years of the start date of an employee’s contract of employment with the college.
4.7 Professional standards
The service expects all curriculum delivery staff to work towards the current Professional Standards for Teachers for the sector.
To ensure the delivery of high standard learning experiences the service has developed comprehensive internal quality assurance procedures which may include visits to lessons to observe the quality of learning taking place. In addition, detailed but supportive procedures for tackling underperformance in Teaching, Learning and Assessment are in place to ensure that all our learners receive lessons of a minimum required standard.
All learning lessons should be well planned, provide clear learning outcomes for students to work towards, a variety of appropriate learning and assessment activities and be engaging. In addition, learning sessions should provide individualized support to ensure that barriers to learning are removed and all learners are able to make good progress in their learning.
4.8 Continuous professional development support
Newcastle City Learning offers a wide range of opportunities to staff to improve their practice and overall professional standing within the sector. This includes opportunity to improve subject specialism, vocational updating and the improvement of teaching, learning and assessment practices.
Curriculum delivery staff have the opportunity to apply to attend external Continuous Professional Development events whether this be training or individual events to support the improvement of their performance in the classroom. NCL will support such requests financially, whenever practically possible.
In addition, NCL’s Lead Practitioner Team offer support in the form of mentoring and coaching support.
We will also support:
- Bespoke CPD events at the request of curriculum teams and managers
- The support of a Consultant Teaching, Learning and Assessment mentor and trainer to provide an additional layer of support for teaching staff, bringing in external views and new ideas.
4.9 Consider, embed and champion equality and diversity and inclusion throughout all teaching, learning and assessment activity
All curriculum delivery staff will be fully trained to understand their responsibilities in respect of the Equality Act. All staff will endeavour to create a learning environment which is inclusive and conducive to learning for all. All staff will adopt a zero-tolerance approach to all forms of bullying and harassment and will seek to promote equality and diversity within their delivery of learning.
5. Monitoring and Evaluation
The success of the Teaching and Learning Improvement Strategy will be monitored and evaluated by measuring impact through the review of evidence supplied through the formal self-assessment procedures carried out at the end of each academic year.
In addition, curriculum managers may carry out themed learning walks and data is collected through the lesson visit procedures throughout the academic year. Student feedback is also collected regularly to ensure that the learner experience is a good one.
- The successful implementation of the college Teaching, Learning and Assessment Improvement Strategy is the responsibility all curriculum delivery staff, and managers within the college.
- Senior Leads and Curriculum Managers will have responsibility for monitoring the successful implementation of the improvement strategy across the service.
- The Senior Leads are accountable for the quality of Teaching, Learning and Assessment in their area of responsibility.
Evidence used to judge the quality of teaching, learning and assessment and the impact of the strategic plan:
- Outcomes from Lesson visits
- Success rate statistics, including monitoring of achievement gaps between groups
- Learner and stakeholder feedback
- Outcomes from the 7Cs of classroom climate surveys
- Outcomes of Course Review and Evaluation (CRE) and annual Self-Assessment (SA)
- The outcome of reviews by external agencies, awarding bodies and OFSTED.
The strategy will be reviewed bi-annually, in order to remain up to date and consistent with the overall organization mission, aims and vision.
Updated September 2025.