The ICT Test Bed project was set up by the Department for Education and Skills to explore how ICT can be used to support the Government's wider agenda for education reform.

The independent evaluation was managed by Becta's Evidence and Evaluation Directorate. The evaluation team from Manchester Metropolitan and Nottingham Trent Universities assessed the effectiveness of the project in relation to five key themes:

• Raising standards and performance, especially in the areas of school and college improvement, student attainment and raising the quality of teaching and learning
• Enabling more effective leadership and management in schools and colleges
• Helping teachers to concentrate their time on their core task of teaching
• Enabling more effective collaboration between schools and with their local colleges
• Improving the links between schools, homes and the community.