Among the consequences for the education sector of the government reshuffle earlier in the autumn, and the exit of Nick Gibb, was discussion as to whether or not the controversial initial teacher training market review might be abandoned.

After all, there was more pushback to the initial consultation than the Department for Education had probably anticipated, and it garnered a fair bit of media attention, particularly focused on Oxbridge’s concerns about the plans.

Although there has been relative silence in the past month or so - not least as the government spending review has taken centre stage - I don’t think that this means that much.

Indeed, now that the new ministers have got their feet under the table, I’d expect to see a ramping up of activity, and a formal DfE response by the end of this month or certainly before the end of the school term. 

So what should the DfE do in this response - and what should the sector expect?

Initial teacher training: Why an ITT review is needed

Firstly, the DfE shouldn’t back down from the basic analysis in the original expert group report. Despite the pushback, the central conclusion of that group was correct. ITT has been in need of reform for three main reasons:

• To keep up with the wider changes to teacher policy and support for career development.
• To try and address the cottage industry of small providers that has mushroomed since 2010.
• To address some concerns about quality.

The heat (and some light) has been on that third reason.

I personally don’t agree that the quality of ITT is universally where it needs to be, but Sam Sims’ excellent recent paper shows that there is a solid framework behind the approach, backed by evidence. Some objections to it are ill-founded.

However, even if one parks the argument on quality, the first two arguments still hold. In 2010, the opening up of different routes into teacher training saw School Direct and SCITTs (school-centred initial teacher training) grow significantly in numbers.

Some of this training was undoubtedly excellent. But lots of it wasn’t much better than what it replaced, and it simply created a larger number of providers for the DfE and Ofsted to manage.

And in part because of that, there hasn’t historically been enough of a focus on quality of provision in this regulation (the old Ofsted framework looked at completion and employment rates of trainees, and some self-reported satisfaction figures, rather than the content of what was taught).

Much as with the academies movement, the focus on the quantity of new provision overtook work on the quality of provision, and it’s right that (in both of these areas) this is now addressed.

Pushing teacher quality 

More quietly, for a few years now, the DfE has also been making excellent progress on teacher development policy more broadly. Since the publication of the Carter review, and then the teacher recruitment and retention strategy, the department has invested significant sums in well-received programmes of support.

This continued in the most recent spending review, with 500,000 placements committed to by the end of the Parliament through the new Early Career Framework, and the now wholly free NPQ qualifications across a range of areas for more experienced teachers.

At the same time, the maturing multi-academy trust system has developed some outstanding programmes of initial training and ongoing development for their own staff, which are now being offered more broadly to the system (I’m thinking here of things like the Outwood Institute of Education or the Star Institute).

It’s only right and proper to build an infrastructure of initial training that matches this focus on ongoing development - tied to evidence through the Core Content Framework, which is verified by the Education Endowment Foundation, with a smaller number of lead providers, provision delivered through teaching hubs, and with Ofsted now more focused on quality.

Where change is needed

But the second thing that the DfE should do is be humble enough to recognise that there are some areas that it could change, in response to concerns - and I expect that it will.

For instance, one obvious thing is to extend the timeline for implementation to 2024, not 2023. I would also expect the DfE to look again at the whole task of reaccreditation. It ought to be possible to design a system that is more risk-based and doesn’t require an institution to resubmit every single course document if it’s clear that it will be reaccredited.

Thirdly, it ought to be possible to keep a laser focus on quality but soften some of the very specific quality requirements. Organisations like the Universities Council for the Education of Teachers have made some sensible suggestions on things like relaxing how prescriptive the DfE is on the number of hours that mentors need to train for, which should be taken up.

Implementation will be key here. One of the things that worries me is the geographical nature of provision that may change, and whether a series of cold spots might inadvertently be created. Again, I’d expect the DfE to be very conscious of this.

Something like a faster appeals process, or multiple accreditation points, would be sensible - as well as keeping an active ‘market management’ approach if it does look as if some areas are becoming under served.

If the response looks something like this, then it ought to be possible to achieve what must be the shared objective - creating the best generation of trained teachers ever, who are supported from day one of their careers but continue to be so as they become more experienced.

Jonathan Simons is head of the education practice at Public First