Early Years Covid Recovery - Practitioner and Whole Setting Leadership Support Delivery Partner

The earliest years are the most crucial point of child development and attending early education lays the foundation for lifelong learning and supports children's personal, social and emotional development (PSED).

The Government announced up to £153 million of new funding for training for early years staff to support the very youngest children's learning and development as part of education recovery from the pandemic. This is part of an overall package of £180 million that includes the previously announced Nuffield Early Language Programme (£17m), and further investment (£10m) in the second phase of the Professional Development Programme. Early language and mathematics development has also been affected for a number of children.

DfE will be piloting the programme from April - July 2022 in two Regional School Commissioners (RSC) regions, Lancashire and West Yorkshire and the North of England. The intention is for the programme to be rolled out across England next academic year (2022/23).

For the pilot programme, the Supplier, as the early years recovery delivery partner, shall assist the Department in successfully delivering the following aims and objectives of the Experts and Mentors programme:

• a)Confirm the suitability of candidates by checking their DBS status.
• b)Match Experts, Mentors and Area Leads to relevant settings within their RSC region - working with Local Authorities (LAs) to gauge interest and follow up on applications/recommendations.
• c)Collect, collate and analyse management information (MI) from LAs and settings, sharing MI with DfE and their appointed evaluation partner where requested.
• d)Work collaboratively with DfE and appointed training partner throughout the programme.

For the full roll-out of the programme, the Supplier, as the early years recovery delivery partner, shall assist the Department in successfully delivering the aims and objectives outlined above, and in addition they will:

• e)Manage the expressions of interest process to identify strong candidates to become Experts, Mentors and Area Leads.
• f)Assess suitability of candidates against DfE criteria by way of short video interviews.