The Department for Education has revealed the targets it has set itself in order to improve the quality of the teaching workforce by 2024.
The DfE has also set out how it will measure schools to check whether these targets have been hit.
The information is contained in a letter detailing how senior DfE officials will be held to account for the successes of the National Professional Qualifications (NPQs) and Early Career Framework (ECF) programmes.
NPQs are voluntary qualifications that teachers can take to further their training and professional development.
The ECF came into force in 2021 and outlines a new entitlement to two years of professional development for early career teachers, outlining what teachers should learn in that time.
One of the targets for the ECF is to increase “average teaching workforce quality” by June 2024 in order to support early career teachers, the letter states.
It defines “teaching workforce quality” as:
- The proportion of the teaching population with qualified teacher status (QTS).
- The percentage of teachers with over five years’ experience.
- The percentage of hours that are specialist hours taught.
The NPQs will also work towards this target, with teaching workforce quality monitored through Ofsted measures, GCSE results and key stage 2 performance.
The letter explains that this will need to be measured at school level, rather than at individual teacher level.
The DfE has also set a target for the reduction in teacher wastage by June 2024, meaning those teachers who have dropped out of the profession, retired or died by the end of their second year in teaching.
An additional target set out for ECF is an “improved quality and consistency of induction” for new teachers.
The department is aiming for a 50 per cent take-up of the Full Induction Programme (FIP) in 2021-22, and 80 per cent each year thereafter.
NPQ targets
Additional targets for NPQs:
- An increase in pipelines for leaders and better teachers by 2024 (monitored through school workforce census (SWC) data on promotions and career progression).
- A reduction in teacher and leader wastage at the end of their second year by June 2024 (using retention and wastage data from the SWC).
- Improved quality and consistency of leadership (monitored through Ofsted’s leadership and management rating. Also drawing on SWC data on head and associated staff retention rates).
In March, the DfE revealed the roll-out of the new NPQ school leadership training providers starting in September 2021.
The NPQs are now delivered by nine “lead training providers”.
In November of this year, a study for the 2017-2018 cohort revealed 65 per cent of teachers and heads reported difficulties in balancing the time needed to complete their NPQ study and the demands of their day-to-day role.
