A group of four multi-academy trusts will establish and run the new £121 million National Institute of Teaching (NIoT), the government has confirmed this morning.
The School Led Development Trust (SLDT), which is made up of the Harris Federation, Outwood Grange Academies Trust, Star Academies and Oasis Community Learning, will run the new teacher-training academy from the autumn, the Department for Education confirmed in a statement this morning.
Writing for Tes exclusively today to mark Thank a Teacher Day, schools minister Robin Walker said the new IoT and a raft of other initiatives such as the extended NPQ funding over the next two years are part of his “determination” to make England “the best place in the world to be a teacher”.
Tes reported in March that SLDT was the “preferred bidder” for the six-year NIoT contract, but the DfE has since been embroiled in a legal battle with the Ambition Institute, which also submitted a bid.
When the NIoT was first announced, the DfE said it will have two “principal roles”: firstly, exemplifying how to deliver initial teacher training (ITT), the Early Career Framework (ECF), National Professional Qualifications (NPQs) and the National Leaders of Education (NLE) development programmes as part of one coherent teacher development pathway; and secondly, supporting other organisations to understand and implement best practice and evidence in teacher-development delivery.
The NIoT’s establishment is already behind its original timeline. The original contract document said that trainee recruitment would begin in “early 2022”, and “operate most of its core functions” by the time it opens in September 2022.
School leaders said they welcomed the NIoT go-ahead and other teacher-training investment, but remained “gravely concerned” about low numbers of teachers owing to a “decade of pay erosion”, and how the new Institute would work alongside established training providers without creating “a muddle of teacher training route”.
ECF workload concerns
The DfE also said it is set to publish fresh research today revealing concerns with the extra workload created by the Early Career Framework implementation.
There have previously been concerns raised about the increased workload that the ECF creates for newly qualified teachers as well as their mentors.
In March, Mr Walker wrote to school leaders to announce the DfE would be offering more “help” with the implementation, by “reviewing materials to make them as user-friendly as possible”, “simplifying the digital service, making it easier to navigate and reducing the amount of information you need to provide”, and “streamlining the registration process to ensure it is quick and easy to sign up your early career teachers and mentors”.
Mr Walker also announced the creation of new materials for school leaders, mentors and early career teachers to answer common questions about induction and ECF-based training.
The DfE also said today it will offer small schools of under 600 pupils a payment of £200 for every teacher or leader they employ who participates in a National Professional Qualification (NPQ).
And with a previously announced investment of £184 million, it said that NPQs will continue to be free for teachers to take for the next two academic years (2022-23 and 2023-24).
Two further NPQs, in early years leadership and leading literacy, were announced earlier this year.
The number of settings eligible to support the NPQ scholarships is also being broadened to include independent special schools, hospital schools and young offender institutions.
In today’s statement, Mr Walker said teachers were “the backbone of our school system”.
He added: “The broadening in scope of our fully funded training means that every teacher who wants to will benefit, while our first-of-its-kind National Institute of Teaching will be at the forefront of the delivery of teacher training, driving up support for teachers and the quality of teaching in schools, ultimately helping to level-up education for all.”
Melanie Renowden, CEO of the NIoT, said the institute would play a “central role” in nurturing the talents of teachers and leaders at all stages of their careers, so they can “provide children and young people with the world-class education they deserve”.
NIoT must ‘complement the existing system’
Geoff Barton, general secretary of the Association of School and College Leaders, said the actions announced by the government were welcome, but added that he was ”gravely concerned about the fact that there are not enough teachers in the first place”.
He added that to retain and recruit the best staff, the government would have to “significantly” improve salaries across the board after a “decade of pay erosion”, improve funding to schools and “ratchet down the pressures of an excessively harsh accountability regime”.
Speaking about the NIoT specifically, he said: “We congratulate the trusts that will run the National Institute of Teaching and wish them well. However, we remain concerned about exactly how the institute will work alongside established teacher-training providers where there are regional campuses competing for the same pool of graduate trainees.
“It is going to be important that the institute complements the existing system rather than leading to a muddle of teacher training routes.”
Ambition Institute and the NIoT only settled a legal dispute in the past few days.
The teacher-training charity had filed a High Court legal claim and accused the DfE of making “manifest errors” in the way it assessed the bids for the contract.
