Published date: 12 June 2023

Last edited date: 12 June 2023

Closed opportunity - This means that the contract is currently closed. The buying department may be considering suppliers that have already applied, or no suitable offers were made.


Closing: 28 July 2023, 12pm

Contract summary

Industry

  • Education and training services - 80000000

Location of contract

Any region

Value of contract

£0 to £182,680

Procurement reference

tender_372142/1223643

Published date

12 June 2023

Closing date

28 July 2023

Closing time

12pm

Contract start date

1 January 2024

Contract end date

31 July 2026

Contract type

Service contract

Procedure type

Open procedure (below threshold)

Any interested supplier may submit a tender in response to an opportunity notice.

This procedure can be used for procurements below the relevant contract value threshold.

Contract is suitable for SMEs?

Yes

Contract is suitable for VCSEs?

Yes

Description

The Standards and Testing Agency (STA), an executive agency of the Department for Education (DfE) is looking to procure a pool of proofers to quality assure key stage 1 and key stage 2 national curriculum tests and reception baseline assessment to ensure that these tests are accurate and of high quality. The national curriculum tests include the year 1 phonics screening check, English grammar, punctuation and spelling (key stage 1 and key stage 2), English reading (key stage 1 and key stage 2), mathematics (key stage 1 and key stage 2), and the year 4 multiplication tables check (MTC).

Bidders should be experienced professionals from a range of backgrounds including the early years / key stage 1 / key stage 2 curriculum, teaching, assessment, marking and editorial work, who can offer specialist or professional skills such as subject knowledge and/or proofing training or experience in paper and on-line environments.

There are two key areas:
- Paper-based review including proofing
- On-screen review including proofing, quality assurance and functionality

Ensuring overall quality at STA includes the following activities:

Paper-based and on-screen proofing to ensure:
- accuracy and consistency within and across documents;
- that tests and mark schemes reflect each other;
- the materials meet editorial and the style guidelines; and
- that the modified tests reflect and/or match the live tests, as appropriate.

Quality Assurance of on-screen environments to ensure:
- accuracy of content compared with previous versions;
- accuracy and consistency within and across assessment versions;
- test delivery programme function;
- information presentation;
- scoring accuracy; and
- reporting accuracy.

STA is looking for individuals or organisations who have a good understanding of the early years framework / national curriculum for key stages 1 and 2 in England, in English reading / literacy, English grammar, punctuation and spelling, mathematics / numeracy, including application of skills and use of data in addition to relevant professional experience.

Experience is likely to come from the classroom, working as a subject advisor to schools, curriculum development, marking, test development or wider assessment development or from a publishing or professional proofing background.

Additionally, experts engaged for proofing will have experience of proofing complex materials, on paper and preferably on screen.

More information

Additional text

An invitation to tender (ITT) for the provision of the Quality Assurance resource (ref: STA-0322) containing all information relevant to this procurement can be obtained by emailing STA Tenders mailbox (TendersTD.STA@education.gov.uk). Both clarifications and tenders should be emailed to TendersTD.STA@education.gov.uk. Please note that the closing date for all bids is 28th July 2023 at 12:00 and any clarification questions must be received no later than 17th July 2023 at 12:00.

About the buyer

Address

Bishopsgate House
Darlington
DL1 5QE
England

Email

emily.kitching@education.gov.uk