Grant call for six Essential Digital Skills Champions

The Education and Training Foundation (@E_T_Foundation) is offering six grants of £8,000 to learning providers in the FE and Training sector to support a member of staff to become an Essential Digital Skills (EDS) Champion and run an EDS Reflective Exploration project.

This grant call is part of the ETF’s Essential Digital Skills workforce development programme, which supports learning providers and individual teaching, learning and assessment professionals to prepare for delivering the new EDS Qualifications based on the government’s national standards for essential digital skills. The programme is now in its third year and offers self-assessment, online CPD resources and a rich programme of live training events held online. It also supports a growing community of practice of those involved in delivering essential digital skills courses.

The aim of the EDS Champion role is to help foster communities of practice across the sector for different aspects of essential digital skills delivery. Each Champion will:

• Lead a 10-week Reflective Exploration in their own organisation involving at least two colleagues
• Develop an EDS community of practice within their organisation
• Contribute to the online EDS community of practice on the Enhance Digital Teaching Platform
• Participate in and co-lead a range of events within the EDS CPD programme
• Host an event in their organisation to share their Reflective Exploration work with the wider FE sector
• Develop and share teaching and learning resources and guidance.

The EDS Champion programme will commence on 4 October 2021 and complete on 11 March 2021.

The grant funding from the Department for Education of £8,000 per organisation will cover the remission time for the EDS Champion (£5,000) and for at least two colleagues to participate in the 10-week Reflective Exploration (£3,000).

Participating organisations will be expected to release their Champions for preparation and planning activities, ETF events and to organise and host the final celebratory event.

National Head of EdTech and Digital Skills, Vikki Liogier, said:

“We are very excited about the introduction of Essential Digital Skills Champions to the EDS programme. The whole aim of the programme is to develop a robust and sustainable practitioner-led support framework and these new Champions and the associated Reflective Exploration projects will help to promote critical thinking and sharing of good practice.”

Expressions of interest are invited from learning providers funded by the Education and Skills Funding Agency (ESFA). Please read the guidance documentation before completing an expression of interest form online.

The deadline for completing the expression of interest form is 12:00 noon on Friday 10 September 2021. Full details are available on the ETF website.

This programme is funded by the Department for Education and will be run on behalf of the ETF by Sero Consulting Ltd.