EARLY YEARS PROFESSIONAL DEVELOPMENT FUND

The Department for Education (DfE) is exploring commercial options to appoint a national delivery partner to develop and implement a comprehensive programme of evidence-based training, development and coaching support to nominated 'Early Years Continuing Professional Development (CPD) Champions' across England.

We will be hosting a market engagement event on Thursday, 4 October from 10:30 to 13:00 in London. The intention of this market engagement is to identify the level of interest and gather feedback from suppliers about our requirements and delivery proposals, which will help shape our approach to this procurement.

We envisage that the delivery partner will provide evidenced-based training and coaching support to Early Years CPD champions. The training will equip the champions with a strong understanding of effective pedagogy and practice to improve pre-reception children's early language, literacy and numeracy - focused on implementing an evidence-based approach to help improved outcomes for disadvantaged children. We are considering a model whereby champions would cascade their learning via a 'train-the-trainer' model to other practitioners working in pre-reception private, voluntary and independent (PVI) and school-based settings; through local partnerships across England, convened and administered by selected local authorities.

We welcome bids from both individual organisations and from partnerships and consortia, although we would expect there to be a lead organisation and accountable body for the partnership or consortium.

The DfE is not committing to undertake any formal commissioning activity resulting from this notice, and we may use the information gathered via this process to support any future commercial activity.

Background

On 31 July 2018, the Secretary of State for Education announced a £50million investment to drive up standards in the early years, which will spearhead a range of initiatives to halve the number of children finishing reception year without the early communication or reading skills they need by 2028. £20million of this investment will be spent on training and professional development for pre-reception staff in disadvantaged areas, driving up standards in the pre-school years so that more children arrive at school with the foundations in place to make the most of primary school - https://www.gov.uk/government/speeches/education-secretary-sets-vision-for-boosting-social-mobility

Timescales

Suppliers intending to express an interest in this work would need to be able to start work from Spring 2019 with the intention of training for CPD Champions to begin before the end of summer term 2019.

Additional information: The contract value for the national delivery partner is estimated to be between £3-4m.

Any contract would be from Spring 2019 to July 2021, although this is an estimate only and will be further informed by responses.

If you would like to attend the market engagement event please email [email protected] by Wednesday, 26 September with the name(s) of people planning to attend, including the name of the organisation you are representing. We would ask that you limit this to no more than two representatives from your organisation. Please indicate in the subject box 'Early Years Professional Development Fund market engagement event'. Acknowledgment and further information about the event will be emailed to you on Friday, 28 September.

Please note that this PIN is not a call to competition and the DfE is not bound to enter into any procurement activity because of it.