Early Career Framework - an update on our involvement this year and looking to the 2021/2022 programme

At the heart of the Department for Education’s Teacher Recruitment and Retention Strategy is the commitment to transform support for teachers at the start of their career.

TSSW are pleased to be working with national provider, Teach First to deliver this one-year version to 83 Early Career Teachers (ECT) and their mentors signed-up to the programme.
 
The Early Career Framework (ECF) offers professional development support for Newly Qualified Teachers (NQTs) in the first two years of their career. It underpins an entitlement to a fully funded, *two-year package of structured training and support for teachers, linked to the best available research evidence. The package of reforms, funded by the DfE will ensure that new teachers have dedicated time set aside to focus on their development. 
 
*In response to the COVID-19 pandemic, the first year of the ECF programme was made available to more schools to support a larger number of Early Career Teachers who may have had a disruption to their initial teacher training.
 
Over the year, the ECT is involved in:

• completing online study content through a platform called Brightspace
• has regular mentor interactions
• attends virtual professional development (CPD) training sessions.

Mentors also attend a half-termly virtual CPD session where they have opportunity to meet other mentors and discuss aspects of the programme and their role. During the session they also receive further CPD on effective mentoring and core skills. 
 
To support the implementation of the programme, and the development of the Early Career Teacher, a Teach First or TSSW Development Lead (DL) has been assigned to work with schools and groups of ECTs. All of our Development Leads are experienced practitioners and experts in training teachers and deliver both the Early Career Teachers virtual CPD sessions and mentor training.
 
The DLs are now working on Module 3 /6 with our ECTs and the programme has been well received so far.
The engagement shown by schools, ECTs and mentors has been very encouraging, despite the continuing challenging circumstances presented by the national lockdown.
  
National Roll-Out September 2021
As an organisation TSSW is proud to be in a position to support new teachers as they take their first steps in the profession and we are looking forward to playing a significant role in the national roll-out of the Early Career Framework (ECF) in September 2021.
 
Being involved in the one-year programme has proved to be invaluable and will place us in a strong position to approach next year's roll-out confidently for the following reasons:

• It has enabled our Development Leads to gain an in-depth understanding of the programme and pedagogy and we understand the full importance of using local DLs central to our programme delivery in September 2021.
• We have listened to feedback from schools, ECTs and mentors that we can actively use to inform next year’s programme.
• We can grow the model used this for year’s delivery to reach more schools and ECTs and are in a great strong position to refine this model.
• Early roll-out has allowed TSSW to understand the programme logistics to facilitate help with a smooth roll-out in September 2021.
• We have used our experience of delivering the programme and understanding of the contents to suggest changes and improvements to Teach First.
• As an organisation we have established weekly ECF newsletters to add an extra layer of support for our ECTs and mentors.

 
Next Steps
TSSW will be running a number of early engagement events for schools at the end of the Spring Term/beginning of the Summer Term to prepare schools for the ECF roll-out.

We can advise on time commitments, the structure of the programme and share how schools have approached its implementation this year and also identify pitfalls and barriers to success and suggest ways that these can be avoided. The events will also give advice on choosing mentors to support the ECTs.
 
Following on from this in the Summer Term we will invite mentors to an early induction programme to prepare them for September and introduce schools to their Development Leads.
 
If you’d like to know more, please contact Assistant Director of TSSW, Sarah Frame. 

Contact Sarah Frame for more information