Designation of Appropriate Body for British Schools Overseas

Purpose: Since September 2021, significant reforms have been introduced to ensure that new teachers receive high-quality training based on the Early Career Framework (ECF) and are adequately supported throughout the early stages of their careers. As part of the reforms, the department also committed to establishing specialist appropriate body services to operate with British schools overseas.

Appropriate bodies have a statutory role and are responsible for ensuring the quality assurance of statutory teacher induction and for ensuring early career teachers receive their entitled support.

The purpose of this Prior Information Notice is to notify the sector of a planned competitive process to identify one or more organisations suitable for designation as an appropriate body to operate from academic year 2024/25.

Organisations with the required capacity and expertise in working extensively as or with an appropriate body to support statutory induction within British schools overseas will be invited to apply for designation to operate as an appropriate body specifically for early career teachers serving induction in British schools overseas.

The DfE will be presenting an online market warming event for British schools overseas stakeholders with an interest and organisations that may be interested in applying for designation as a specialist appropriate body serving only British schools overseas. The market warming event will provide further information on the designation process. Additionally, interested parties will have the opportunity to ask questions during the event, which the DfE will respond to after the event via the DfE eTendering Portal, JAGGAER (details below).

Market Event for Stakeholders and Interested Parties: A market warming event will take place on 1pm BST (12 noon GMT) on 11th July. Please note that a maximum of two people from each organisation can attend the event. In the event that you are unable to attend the webinar, you will be able to access the webinar slides via JAGGAER after the scheduled webinar date.

To sign up for the webinar that is due to take place on 11th July, 1pm BST (12 noon GMT), you should: 1. Follow this link: https://education.app.jaggaer.com/esop/guest/go/opportunity/detail?opportunityId=56528 2. Once registering/logging in, express your interest in the opportunity. Then choose the option as part of this to state that you would like to attend the webinar. 3. You will receive a link to join the webinar closer to the scheduled time. Please note that signing up for this event will allow your organisation to access the webinar but will not commit your organisation to applying for designation

We expect the competitive process to open during Summer 2023, with a view to designating AB(s) to operate from academic year 2024/25.

Additional information: This notice is for information only and is not a call for applications. Accordingly, the DfE will not be liable for any bid cost, expenditure, work, or effort incurred by an organisation in acting on the basis of this notice. Within this designation process, it is important to clarify that the department will not award funding to successful organisations. This designation process aims to establish a system in which designated appropriate bodies for British schools overseas will be able to charge schools for their services to cover costs.

All future information will be issued via the DfE eTendering Portal. Applicants can access this system at: (https://education.app.jaggaer.com/) for details of how to register and the terms of free registration. All information included in this notice is indicative and subject to change.

UPDATE 12th July 2023 - Slides and transcript from engagement event uploaded.

UPDATE 2nd August 2003 - The competitive process for the designation of appropriate bodies for British school overseas is now live. The application pack can be accessed on the JAGGAER platform at: https://education.app.jaggaer.com/esop/guest/go/opportunity/detail?opportunityId=56528