At the Education Show 2001 in Birmingham, Learning Pathways won a new award which reflects the growing trend for the educational industry and its commercial suppliers to work together to develop the best possible products to match changing educational needs.

The award, Education in Partnership, celebrates the unique alliance between Learning Pathways, a software developer in Derby, and the Northern Grid for Learning, a consortium of 12 Local Education Authorities in the North-East.

Learning Pathways encouraged Northern Grid and practising UK teachers to work with the company to create computerised learning support materials to help pupils improve English and Mathematics and to assist schools and LEAs to meet their literacy and numeracy targets. The resultant software, Literacy & Numeracy Pathways, fully aligned to published government strategies, is already being used in many schools across the North-East of England and in other parts of the country. The framework for the software is Learning Pathways' successful A+nywhere Learning System®.

On presenting the award, Tom O'Connor, on behalf of BESA (the British Educational Suppliers Association) said: "This is a true creative partnership: a commercial company using educationalists to develop valuable educational product; schools raising the status of teachers as experts; a national project raising its profile and, most interestingly, a project generating a sustainable income stream through a royalty agreement."