The Department for Education [DfE] began rolling out changes to statutory induction for teachers across England last September. Yet, despite some positive feedback, the changes are already facing criticism from the teaching profession less than a year in, and more alterations are likely to follow.
The new early career framework [ECF] extends the induction period for new teachers from one to two years and provides funded additional time off timetable for second-year teachers.
The changes were introduced as part of the government’s strategy for teacher recruitment and retention. The two-year induction programme is targeted toward giving early career teachers [ECTs] better training and development opportunities and raising standards.
Under the £130 million revised programme, teachers are provided with dedicated mentor support, training and mentoring sessions, regular progress reviews and formal assessments against the teachers’ standards.
As of May 30, 2022, over 25,000 teachers and 23,000 mentors were participating in the two-year programme. Such a take-up volume prompted a statement of gratitude from schools minister Robin Walker, who wrote to schools to thank them for their role in making the early career framework successful.
However, despite “largely positive” feedback according to Walker, the programme has not come without its pitfalls, with the schools minister conceding that the reforms were “causing some difficulties”.
Critics of the revised programme have hit out at its intensity, calling it restrictive and workload heavy. Indeed, one of the government’s own ECF providers has said that staff have often needed to “drop something” in order to take part, Schools Week reports.
School leaders’ union the National Association of Head Teachers [NAHT] separately uncovered that the new framework had caused head teachers concern over the volume of extra work for new teachers and mentors, the latter of which were said to be “drowning” in an extended workload.
Writing for Schools Week, Sam Strickland, principal at The Duston School in Northampton, said that although the ECF reforms had promised much, they had “already become a straitjacket and a workload-inducing tick-box exercise”.
Strickland added that the framework’s “prescriptive approach takes what should be a scaffold and instead builds a prison” and many of the materials within it “miss the mark and need further quality assurance”.
Strickland wrote: “When it was first introduced, the ECF was framed around the development of working relationships and trust. Very sensibly, its delivery would hinge on the relationship between mentor and mentee. Trusting the profession to do its thing? Allowing us to operate as professionals without swathes of red tape? This was what so many of us had been praying for. Shifting from evidencing everything to within an inch of its life towards rich engagement in educational discussion was exactly what we needed to support our newest teachers to grow and flourish.
“Sadly, it still is what’s needed. Despite its pertinence and, evidently, significant DfE funding, its execution has gone awry. ECTs are expected to collect endless evidence, to attend lengthy online seminars that are generalised and often not phase-specific. If the pandemic has taught us anything, it’s that online delivery is fine for keynote talks but not as effective when you want a two-way learning experience. Many of the materials and resources miss the mark and need further quality assurance.
“Even if the materials were of a higher quality and more readily personalised, the rigidity of the framework itself means the aim would remain a distant one for many. Expecting ECTs to engage in much of the training in a set order gives little consideration to each one’s starting point, the experiences they may have encountered during their PGCE/ITT course, or their specific needs and wants at any given time. This prescriptive approach takes what should be a scaffold and instead builds a prison.
“Policy makers urgently need to take more time to consider how to develop an instructional coaching model of support for mentors – and then trust them more to deploy it.”
So, less than one year into the ECF reforms, there is already the prospect of further changes.
DfE officials have said that they are exploring the prospect of providing mentors with “more options” for when they can complete their training, including starting in the preceding summer term and using online delivery where appropriate.
Ministers are also looking into allowing for greater flexibility on when induction programmes are delivered, particularly “in the autumn term of the first year. Walker has separately said that the programme materials are also under review to “make them as user-friendly as possible” as was “simplifying the digital service, making it easier to navigate”.
Walker said: “It is crucial that we maintain early career teachers’ entitlement to all of the high-quality content contained in these carefully sequenced [provider] programmes, but we also want mentors to be able to use their professional judgement in supporting early career teachers to understand and apply the content of the programmes to their particular context and role.
“We will therefore work with the lead providers and headteachers to produce guidance ahead of September so that mentors are clear how they can do this.”
Amid all of this, the DfE is also having to take action to ensure that ECTs and mentors are so much as being given the appropriate time off timetable to dedicate to training. To this end, it is launching a consultation to tighten up checks on schools through reforming the appropriate body system.
The appropriate bodies are those responsible for ensuring that ECTs and mentors receive their statutory entitlements. Local authorities can currently take on the responsibility for this, but part of the consultation process – set to close on July 21 – will determine whether this will remain the case.
Where teaching school hubs take on the role of appropriate body, the DfE’s existing contract means that they can be held to account against certain key performance indicators. However, there is no direct accountability mechanism for local authorities in appropriate body roles, meaning it is harder to ensure quality and compliance.
Schools Week research has indicated that the issue around ECTs and mentors not being allocated appropriate levels of training time off timetable is a widespread one. Its findings uncovered that almost half of the mentors currently participating in the programme have not received additional time off to work with ECTs, despite funding being provided to enable this.
The funding allows for ECTs to take 36 hours off timetable over their two years in the programme. The consultation has emphasised that it is “especially important” to “make sure all ECTs receive their statutory entitlements and that mentors are given sufficient time to conduct their role effectively”.
The consultation also seeks to provide greater clarity over how the appropriate bodies ought to operate, in order to improve the consistency of support that is provided.
The consultation states: “We are asking ABs to ensure that they provide rigorous checks on all schools to ensure that ECTs and their mentors are receiving their full entitlements and support.”
Government has also expressed an intent to crack down on the practice of a “small minority of schools” switching between appropriate bodies through a new teacher’s induction “to avoid challenge” and reforms would look at “how to prevent this practice from happening in future” unless in exceptional circumstances.
Between now and July 21, 2022, the consultation will gather feedback on the challenges faced by appropriate bodies. Government ministers have conceded that a “lack of consistency in the quality” of services that the appropriate bodies are offering “remains an unresolved issue”.
Only time will tell as to whether all of the issues around the ECF are to be addressed accordingly.
Photo by Evangeline Shaw on Unsplash
