Question to the Department for Education:

To ask His Majesty's Government what consideration they have given to adapting the Early Career Framework for teachers to take account of the need for diverse skillsets.

The Early Career Framework (ECF) provider-led programmes have been designed with an evidence based approach to ensure early career teachers (ECTs) focus on the things that make the most difference to their professional practice, ensuring that every teacher receives a consistently high-quality induction. It is important that the carefully planned structure and sequence of the programmes is followed. However, programmes can and should be contextualised to an individual’s context and role and tailored to an individual's strengths and development needs.

The department has listened to the feedback on the provider-led ECF based induction programmes and is working on making improvements. The department has produced flexibilities guidance for lead providers on how ECTs can be supported to understand and apply the content of the programmes to their context and role. The department knows that there are many schools and mentors who are already managing ECF based training effectively and has invited practitioners to share how they support their ECTs to apply the content of the provider-led ECF based training programmes to their school’s context. The department has shared these examples of good practice with the sector through an online blog.

The department has publicly committed to reviewing the Initial Teacher Training Core Content Framework and ECF alongside each other. As part of this review, the department will continue to review how the ECF is currently delivered, which will facilitate any necessary adjustments and improvements, based on feedback, to improve the experience for ECTs and mentors.