Teacher trainees will now not start newly reformed courses until September 2024 - a year later than originally planned - the government has announced this morning.

The news comes in response to a consultation on recommendations from the controversial initial teaching training (ITT) market review.

The Department for Education’s long-anticipated response also includes an announcement of £35.7 million to fund the delivery of the changes, including mentor training, and confirmed that teacher training providers will need to apply for accreditation in one of at least two application rounds taking place in 2022.

It added that plans for Ofsted to inspect all providers would be stepped up so that all have received a visit and new grading by July 2024.

Accreditation: Warning over risk to school teacher training provision

Early Career Framework: ‘Grave concerns’ over teacher mentoring

Reaccreditation: All teacher trainers reaccredited in ITT ‘step change’

The 12-month delay to the start of the delivery of the new ITT courses comes after heads and teacher leaders called for the reforms to be halted over fears they would “irreparably damage” the future pipeline of new teachers.

Concerns remain over accreditation process

Despite welcoming the 12-month delay and funding, ITT leaders have said they are “hugely disappointed” that “legitimate and widely expressed concerns about the accreditation process have been ignored”.

Emma Hollis, executive director of the National Association of School-Based Teacher Trainers (NASBTT), said: “Having been able to broadly welcome and support the outcomes of the quality requirement recommendations, where the concerns of the sector have clearly been heard and responded to, we are hugely disappointed to note that the legitimate and widely expressed concerns about the accreditation process have been ignored and the government is intent on pursuing a risky, expensive and entirely unnecessary accreditation process.

“We have consistently reported, and firmly believe, that the quality requirements could be met in other, far less disruptive, ways. We remain convinced that this process poses an unnecessary risk to supply and will unfairly discriminate against smaller providers in particular.”

Accreditation timeline ignores ‘pressures’

Ms Hollis said that the remaining timeline for the accreditation process demonstrated “a complete lack of recognition of the pressures in the school sector” and “shows the government to be unresponsive to the reasonable arguments put to it over the past few months regarding the incredible strain everyone is under”.

She added: “Whilst the government has, rightly, recognised the need for more time for implementation, this recognition has not extended to their plans for the accreditation process itself.

“Given that the report also confirms that the Ofsted inspection cycle will be accelerated, with all providers inspected by July 2024, we would strongly suggest that the accreditation process is an entirely unnecessary additional burden for providers whose readiness to deliver the new requirements could more easily, and with less disruption, be assessed through the existing quality assurance process of Ofsted inspections.”

In a statement, the Universities’ Council for the Education of Teachers (UCET) said the “case for an expensive and bureaucratic reaccreditation process had not been made”.

The statement said: “We are pleased that, following discussions with UCET and others, the government has relaxed some of the detailed requirements relating to programme structures, and taken steps to amend or provide funding for some of the proposals that would have had significant cost implications for ITE providers and their partner schools.

”[However] the case for an accreditation process has not been made, and we are worried that it might be used as a means to introduce further changes that have not been consulted upon. 

“We do not see the need for an expensive and bureaucratic reaccreditation process which could, depending on how it is handled, have implications for teacher supply.”

Professor Sam Twiselton, director of Sheffield Institute of Education, Sheffield Hallam University and member of the ITT Market Review Expert Advisory Group, welcomed the delay, saying it gives “more time to plan the implementation of these ambitious reforms to ITT”.

She said: “It is really good to see that DfE has listened to the many views of the sector and has made the new quality requirements more flexible and nuanced and therefore able to reflect and adapt to existing good practice. It is really good to see that mentoring remains at the heart of these reforms.

“The next opportunity to be embraced is to ensure that both ITE and school sectors are able to work with DfE to make the most of the extra time to prepare for first teaching in 2024. This means working together to improve the system in a spirit of collaboration.”

Schools minister Robin Walker said the ITT reforms are “the next step in our ambition to create a golden thread of evidence-based training, support and professional development, which will run through each phase of a teacher’s career”. 

He added: “We want this country to be the best place to become a brilliant teacher, and that starts with high-quality initial teacher training.”

Writing for Tes this morning, Ian Bauckham, chair of the ITT market review says the shake-up is the “missing link” in the government’s approach to “teacher professional development” and will “complement” the early career framework and the new national professional qualifications.

He said: “As teachers, all of us know how important it is to have a clear curriculum to follow for our classes. Exactly the same applies when we train teachers.”