Join the SDN team
SDN is expanding! We’re a team of leading specialists in apprenticeships, technical education and workforce development. We work for training and education organisations, employers and government, providing industry-leading ...
UVAC Conference 2023
We’ll be at the UVAC National Conference 2023! Thursday 30th November The UVAC Conference is the perfect place to learn, connect, and grow. Take a look at the full conference programme here, it features a range of informative ...
White Paper – How ITPs can survive, and thrive in an inflationary market
SDN and Aptem recently teamed up to produce a joint white paper on how independent training providers (ITPs) and others are adapting their strategy, funding streams and priorities to survive and thrive in the current market. We ...
Compliance Insights – October 2023
David Lockhart-Hawkins is SDN’s compliance specialist, having worked with hundreds of apprenticeship providers to develop robust approaches to funding, compliance and quality. Here, David shares his top compliance insights from ...
Apprenticeship pricing sounds simple, but it’s not!
Apprenticeship providers generally use the maximum funding band to set their apprenticeship price to employers, then assign costs to the five eligible cost categories: initial assessment; off-the-job training; materials and ...
Degree Apprenticeship Funding Competition – what do you need to consider?
The Office for Students (OfS) has launched a £40 million competitive bidding exercise for registered higher education institutions. The exercise focuses on expanding Level 6 degree apprenticeship provision and addressing equality of ...
Improving quality assurance in integrated end-point assessment
In this blog, SDN and Evoko’s university and end-point assessment specialist, Emily Hughes, gives some practical reflections on external quality assurance for integrated end-point assessment. As universities move into the core of ...
Quality improvement strategy: a tool to help leaders define and deliver quality
As a leader of an apprenticeship provider, you have a key role to play in making sure that your apprenticeships are of the highest standard and meet the needs and expectations of all stakeholders. Yet, leading on quality at an ...
Looking beyond the ILR: Collecting and using data to drive performance as an apprenticeship provider
Learner management software provides a great tool to collect Individualised Learner Record (ILR) data, but the required fields in the ILR do not tell your whole data story. If you really want to understand and drive performance as an ...
Five questions end-point assessors ask themselves – and what this means for trainers
As an on-programme assessor or tutor, you play a vital role in helping your apprentices develop the knowledge, skills and behaviours they need to succeed in their chosen career. But do you have a deep knowledge of what end-point ...