see what works. In order to find the best education practice, New Line Learning's Executive Headteacher Dr Chris Gerry regularly travels abroad taking part in education research in some of the top universities and getting research evidence on which to base New Line Learning development. Approach The approach is based on a simple rationale. Children who enjoy school do better than those who don't. Increasing the proportion of children who enjoy school will support raised standards. The research basis for the changes includes work on emotional intelligence and change management. Enjoyment comes from success and the project is designed to enable all young people to be successful and fulfilled through sharing resources and talents across the three schools. This requires an expectation of growing maturity from the students and co-operation from members of the local community. In line with the Academies remit, all three schools share a common curriculum that is extensively supported by information and communication technology. The research evidence on the benefits of ICT to schools is generally positive but the rapid changes in technology and how it is employed in the classroom make up to date data with robust conclusions more difficult than in other fields. Given that resources such as Wikipedia are becoming increasingly sophisticated sources of information but with the downside of many more possibilities for mis-information, it seems inevitable that technology will become an increasing part of general education not least because children have to learn to deal with access to massively increasing quantities of information. This is no different from the printing press enabling books to become mainstream parts of learning. New Line Learning is collecting evidence about how high investment in ICT affects learning as part of its core provision. Some of the approaches and innovations are: An integrated Humanities course in years 7 and 8 aimed at teaching pupils how to learn and study independently Key Stage 3 completed in two years instead of the normal 3, with National Curriculum assessment tests (SATs) being taken in Year 8 instead of Year 9 Key Stage 4 commencing in Year 9 with GCSE examinations taken in Year 10 Early entry into the Sixth Form in Year 11 Encouraging pupils to have a voice, which contributes to the direction of the schools with students even having a say in the new name and look of the new schools Modern curriculum with an emphasis on