Technical Assessment of Home Learning Environment Early Years applications

The Department for Education (DfE) intends to undertake an Expression of Interest (EOI) process to procure the services of an organisation to undertake the technical assessment of the quality assurance exercise for the Early Years Applications.

The Department will be running a quality assurance exercise to identify and provide an indication of quality for early years apps of high educational value, so that parents can make more informed choices when selecting apps for their children.

We have established an educational expert panel, who are responsible for drawing up the criteria for educational quality in early years literacy, language and communication apps.

These criteria will be used to assess apps and award an indication of quality to all those meeting the standard.

In addition, we are looking to procure expertise to develop a technical framework against which to assess apps.

The chosen supplier will be responsible for assessing whether apps that have been approved by the educational expert panel are also in adherence to certain technical external standards such as GDPR and security standards.

The formation of this technical framework will be developed in conjunction with the educational quality criteria by spring/summer 2019.

Once both sets of criteria have been established there will be an open invitation in the spring to app developers and promoters to submit their apps for consideration and the chosen supplier will be required to complete the technical assessment of apps by early summer.

We would expect the chosen supplier to be able to demonstrate a strong record of achievement in reviewing the technical standards of digital apps in either education or another field.

If you would like to express an interest in our requirement please email EarlyYears.APPS@education.gov.uk by 14th March 2019.