News & Views

The SCiP Alliance is seeking to secure a contract to deliver the sector research and toolkit development for the Early Years sector as part of the Thriving Through Childhood and Beyond Project.

This is a new partnership between the Naval Children’s Charity and the Service Children’s Progression (SCiP) Alliance at the University of Winchester which will see the highly regarded Thriving Lives Toolkit for schools expanded across the student life course, from early years through into higher education, covering children aged from 0-25.

Funding secured from the Armed Forces Covenant Fund Trust’s Transformational Grant Programme will complete a project which will develop the Thriving Lives Toolkit suite by specifically developing the early years and higher education toolkits.

A separate contract for the Higher Education phase will deliver the sector research and toolkit development for that phase. Both projects will work to the same timelines and requirements to contribute to the creation of the Thriving through childhood and beyond suite.

Early Years Research Outputs

• Independent research identifying the education experiences of Service children from birth to five years in early years settings across the four nations of the UK, and the perspectives of the families’ and professionals’ supporting them.

• A formal, high quality and published report of the methodology, findings, analysis, and recommendations of the research, incorporating a clear and compelling executive summary.

• We would like the research to generate up to five written descriptions of specific examples of practice in the sector demonstrating the diversity of settings/practice drawn from the research.

Early Years Framework Outputs

• A well-tested, evidence-based toolkit of effective practice in early years developed based on the findings of the research above, supporting success for Service children in 0-5 years education. The toolkit should be appropriate for all early years settings and in all the nations of the UK.

• The toolkit must operate coherently alongside the Thriving Lives Toolkit suite.

Further details

We expect the bidder to use both face-to-face and virtual approaches to engaging with sector for research purposes and all costs incurred, including travel, hosting and incentives for sector stakeholders must be factored within the total budget.

The project has an established governance structure into which the chosen contractor will need to report. This includes a steering group drawn from stakeholder organisations across the UK with overall accountability for the project, as well as an Early Years Advisory Group comprising of early years experts convened to support the research and toolkit development. The bidder will be required to work collaboratively with both governance groups, including providing progress updates at meetings.

Contract Length

Completion required by May 2025.

The deadline for submissions is Friday 1st December, 12 Noon.

For further details or to find out more, please visit the University of Winchester Intend portal at: https://in-tendhost.co.uk/winchester/aspx/Home

Any questions must be directed through the portal as the Alliance team are unable to enter into any correspondence relating to these tenders.