Our Assessment Innovation Fund pilots: Runway Training

Runway Training

Runway Training is a specialist provider of online Functional Skills and Leadership and Management training. Delivering training nationwide, they support thousands of learners a year to achieve nationally recognised qualifications. Offering a flexible approach to learning experience with online, classroom and onsite training available.

About the pilot

As a provider of Functional Skills since 2010, Runway Training have often encountered learners being entered into their final Functional Skills exam with insufficient exam practice and knowledge gaps or without practical application deficiencies being accurately identified and addressed. To tackle this problem, Runway Training have developed a solution that supports their learners to be fully prepared to pass their Functional Skills exam the first time. They have spent four years designing, developing, testing and using their own digital practice paper solution. To the best of their knowledge, it is the only system of its kind that enables learners to complete a Functional Skills practice paper at Level 1 or Level 2 from NCFE, City & Guilds and Edexcel.

Using funding from the Assessment Innovation Fund, Runway Training aims to prove that the system they have developed can increase Functional Skills exam first-time pass rates. Throughout the pilot the team will also look to:

• Capture and analyse the confidence levels of learners before and after practice exams
• Gather feedback from practitioners and learners on how easy they found the system to use
• Gather suggestions for further development from users.

How the solution works to support learners

The online exam papers are sent via email and open in a web browser which is fully editable and records learners’ responses. This ensures the practice papers are accessible, and the learner does not need to download any software, which can often present as a barrier. The online practice paper has key features including a countdown timer, progress bar, calculator, flag function and graph functionality. These features allow the learner to experience the exam interface while also being able to submit their answers. Once the paper is submitted, a bank of impartial markers review the paper and provide detailed, individualised feedback on each question. The practice paper is then returned to the learner within 48-hours along with links to revision resources in areas where the learner has room for improvement.