The Department for Education has updated and combined the training frameworks for early career and trainee teachers in a bid to boost recruitment and retention.
The new Early Career Framework (ECF) and initial teacher training (ITT) curricula will be rolled into one framework, to take effect from September 2025.
The move comes almost a year after the DfE launched a consultation over the curricula amid ongoing concern about workload and a perceived lack of flexibility.
Updates include sections on supporting pupils with special educational needs and disabilities (SEND), as well as on early cognitive development, oracy and children’s mental health.
The new combined framework - known as the Initial Teacher Training and Early Career Framework (ITTECF) - will take early career teachers’ (ECTs’) previous training into account, the DfE has said. The framework was not published at the time of writing.
The DfE said the programmes will also provide more tailoring to ECTs based on their level of development, subject and context, and streamline the training and support for mentors so they can better focus on supporting their ECTs.
Teacher training and early career frameworks combined
Earlier this month schools minister Damian Hinds wrote to the Commons Education Select Committee explaining that changes would be made to the ECF delivery model, including “more flexibility in the delivery of mentor training and ongoing support for trained mentors to reduce their workload across the programme”.
The ITT framework was revised in 2019, while the ECF is currently in its third year of national rollout.
The ECF, launched in 2021, aims for ECTs to be mentored on a one-to-one basis in order to “improve support for early career teachers”, while the framework for trainees - known as the core content framework (CCF) - is used by providers to design and deliver programmes.
Following publication of the new framework, the DfE is preparing to launch a procurement for delivery of ECF-based training from September 2025.
Newly trained teachers who begin the ECF in September 2024 will continue on the old framework for two years, meaning there will be one year of overlap as cohorts start on the new course in 2025, Tes understands.
Announcing the framework today, Mr Hinds said the DfE would “continue to invest in competitive pay and high-quality training, improving teacher wellbeing and easing workload pressures”.
The move has been broadly welcomed by the sector.
Professor Sam Twiselton, DfE adviser and leading ITT figure, said the merging of the frameworks was a “good step forward” that she hoped would “avoid repetition while aiding progression”.
She added that the DfE had “struck a good balance between avoiding too much disruption” and recognising the importance of oracy, SEND and mental health.
Margaret Mulholland, SEND and inclusion specialist at the Association of School and College Leaders, said: “Whilst there are no ‘quick fixes’ for teachers or children, an Initial Teacher Training and Early Career Framework that gives more specific focus to developing the knowledge and skills to support pupils that need the most help is welcomed.”
However, James Noble-Rogers, executive director of the Universities Council for the Education of Teachers, said that, while he had no problem with the revisions that had been made, he would have preferred for the whole process to be “reconceptualised and begun again from scratch”.
The framework should include more on “equalities and diversity issues and draw upon relevant research in these areas”, he said.
Writing for Tes today, the chair of the Teaching School Hubs Council, Richard Gill, said he believed the changes to the frameworks are another step in the right direction.
A report published last year revealed that most teacher mentors thought the support package for new teachers had no impact on retention.
