Trialling Framework

STA wish to re-establish a Trialling and Sampling Framework to carry out trials and sampling exercises for a range of DfE assessments. The new framework will be established by mid-2018 and will operate for a maximum of four years.

Each year, around 560,000 children who have reached the end of key stage 1 and key stage 2, participate in a range of National Curriculum Tests (NCTs) (and from 2016 onwards, a similar number of pupils at the end of key stage 1 will also participate in National Curriculum Tests), and around 35,000 skills tests are sat each year. Each potential test item and complete test is trialled with an appropriate target candidate.

The required services include (but are not limited to)

GENERAL

• Project Management
• Management Information
• Security
• Equalities
• Business Continuity
• Financial Requirements
• Resources
• Quality Assurance
• Exit and Transition

TECHNICAL

• Recruitment and management of schools and test centres
• Recruitment, training and management of administrators
• Recruitment, training and management of markers/coders
• Collection and distribution of assessment instruments
• Secure administration of tests in schools and test centres
• Test and pupil / candidate data handling
• Trial and sample admin reports
• Desktop Publishing
• Printing
• Marking/coding of test scripts
• Management of scripts during marking/coding
• Data capture and management
• Return of results

Additional information: The total value of the work over four years is expected to be between £30,500,000 and £40,140,000