Supporting Early Career Teachers

The Early Career Development Programme has been designed with the Early Career Teacher in mind. The first years of a teacher's career are vitally important for professional development and the best time to develop good habits and effective teaching strategies.

Flexibly delivered with the time constraints of an Early Career Teacher in mind, the programme comprehensively delivers all the content of the Early Career Framework and slots neatly into the schedule of an early career teacher.  

  Face-to-face and online webinars with leading experts

 Regular meetings with an in-school mentor   

 Self-study featuring rich multimedia content including videos, practical tasks and discussion activities

Early Career Teacher Schedule

Our Early Career Development Programme is flexibly delivered through a combination of face-to-face events, facilitated webinars and online courses. The programme is designed to accommodate the busy life of an early career teacher, providing support at every stage.

Annual Induction Conference engages ECTs and establishes learning networks

Half-termly 2 hour facilitated face-to-face ( or virtual) sessions

Half-termly 1 hour facilitated online training sessions

Groups are allocated by geography, phase or local delivery partner

9 modules based on the Teachers’ Standards

In-school mentor support for two years

Mentor Schedule

Our mentor training programme will ensure mentors are proficient in all aspects of the ECF. Mentors will develop mentoring and coaching techniques to support and challenge their ECTs. These highly-trained mentors will play a key role in the development of ECTs and the transferable skills learned will produce long lasting benefits for the individuals themselves as well as the mentor's school and their colleagues.

Mentors identify development areas through our skills audit

Learn about the ONSIDE and CEDAR Mentoring models, their application and impact

Meet the National Standards for school-based Mentors



Building
skills and confidence

Our Early Career Development Programme helps build the skills and confidence needed for early career teachers to flourish in the classroom.  Progressing from Initial Teacher Training, the 2 year fully-funded induction programme provides structured support based on the Early Career Framework reforms as well as training for in-school mentors. 

  Evidence-based development programme providing the best start to a career in teaching

  Fully funded by the DfE with flexible delivery schedule

  Structured content and support allowing for greater retention of staff

  Training and support for in-school mentors

  Delivered by a leading provider of school leadership CPD 

Why Outstanding Leaders Partnership?

Outstanding Leaders Partnership has worked in partnership with schools to deliver high quality, accredited training for many years.  Our Early Career Development Programme team consists of experienced school leaders, academics, eLearning designers and a highly professional and motivated participant and partner support team.

Our team is made up of:

  NLEs, Teaching school hub directors, practising and retired head teachers, HEIs and Research Schools

  Schools involved in the Early Roll Out phase, giving us the inside track on what worked and what didn’t work during the pilots 

  A passionate and enthusiastic participant and partnership support team who are on-hand to provide expert support

Reputation for quality

Outstanding Leaders Partnership has trained over 24,000 school leaders since 2017.

Supported by Best Practice Network, we are a leading provider of the National Professional Qualifications.  We offer school leader and early years apprenticeships, Early Years Initial Teacher Training, NASENCo, HLTA, and School Business Manager programmes. We are proud to add Early Career Teacher Induction training to our growing range of programmes.

 We are rated "an exceptional training provider" by the Department for Education

 We exceed a 93% pass rate across all our programmes

  We have exceeded DfE metrics for the NPQs for school leaders for the last 5 years – see metrics here

  97% of candidates would recommend us to a colleague


ECF School Dashboard

The ECF School Dashboard lists all of the Early Career Teachers and Early Career Mentors at your school and shows their status and upcoming ECF schedule. The dashboard contains all of the information you need to ensure that the staff at your school are making the most of the training. You can find out more here. Schools are given access to their own ECF School Dashboard shortly after registering with us.

Click here to read our full article on the ECF School Dashboard

Early Career Framework

The content of the framework and its underpinning evidence has been independently assessed and endorsed by the Education Endowment Foundation (EEF). The ECF establishes two types of content that ECTs should learn:

Key evidence statements are prefaced by ‘learn that…’ and are drawn from high quality evidence from the UK and overseas. Full references are available in the ECF document. These statements are numbered by the standard within the ECF to which they apply, followed by a trailing number (e.g., statement 1.4 is drawn from Standard 1 and states that teachers will ‘learn that…setting clear expectations can help communicate shared values that improve classroom and school culture.’ These are referred to throughout the programme materials as ‘learn that…’ statements).

Practice statements are prefaced by ‘learn how to…’ and are drawn from both research and guidance from experts in the sector. These statements are numbered by the standard to which they apply, followed by a trailing letter (e.g., statement 1a is also drawn from Standard 1 and states that teachers will ‘learn how to communicate a belief in the academic potential of all pupils, by using intentional and consistent language that promotes challenge and aspiration’). These are referred to throughout the programme materials as ‘learn how to…’ statements.

High Expectations (Standard 1 – Set high expectations)
Learn that… Learn how to…
1. Teachers have the ability to affect and improve the
wellbeing, motivation and behaviour of their pupils.
2. Teachers are key role models, who can influence the
attitudes, values and behaviours of their pupils.
3. Teacher expectations can affect pupil outcomes; setting
goals that challenge and stretch pupils is essential.
4. Setting clear expectations can help communicate
shared values that improve classroom and school
culture.
5. A culture of mutual trust and respect supports effective
relationships.
6. High-quality teaching has a long-term positive effect on
pupils’ life chances, particularly for children from
disadvantaged backgrounds.

Communicate a belief in the academic potential of all pupils,
by:
• Using intentional and consistent language that promotes challenge and aspiration.
• Setting tasks that stretch pupils, but which are achievable, within a challenging curriculum.
• Creating a positive environment where making mistakes and learning from them and the need for effort and perseverance are part of the daily routine.
• Seeking opportunities to engage parents and carers in the education of their children (e.g. proactively highlighting successes).


Demonstrate consistently high behavioural expectations, by:
• Creating a culture of respect and trust in the classroom that supports all pupils to succeed (e.g. by modelling the types of courteous behaviour expected of pupils).
• Teaching and rigorously maintaining clear behavioural expectations (e.g. for contributions, volume level and concentration).
• Applying rules, sanctions and rewards in line with school policy, escalating behaviour incidents as appropriate.
• Acknowledging and praising pupil effort and emphasising progress being made.

Notes

Learn that… statements are informed by the best available educational research; references and further reading are provided below.

Learn how to… statements are drawn from the wider evidence base including both academic research and additional guidance from expert practitioners.

How Pupils Learn (Standard 2 – Promote good progress)
Learn that… Learn how to…
  1. Learning involves a lasting change in pupils’ capabilities or understanding.
  2. Prior knowledge plays an important role in how pupils learn; committing some key facts to their long-term memory is likely to help pupils learn more complex ideas.
  3. An important factor in learning is memory, which can be thought of as comprising two elements: working memory and long-term memory.
  4. Working memory is where information that is being actively processed is held, but its capacity is limited and can be overloaded.
  5. Long-term memory can be considered as a store of knowledge that changes as pupils learn by integrating new ideas with existing knowledge.
  6. Where prior knowledge is weak, pupils are more likely to develop misconceptions, particularly if new ideas are introduced too quickly.
  7. Regular purposeful practice of what has previously been taught can help consolidate material and help pupils remember what they have learned.
  8. Requiring pupils to retrieve information from memory, and spacing practice so that pupils revisit ideas after a gap are also likely to strengthen recall.
  9. Worked examples that take pupils through each step of a new process are also likely to support pupils to learn.


Avoid overloading working memory, by:
• Taking into account pupils’ prior knowledge when planning how much new information to introduce.
• Breaking complex material into smaller steps (e.g. using partially completed examples to focus pupils on the specific steps).
• Reducing distractions that take attention away from what is being taught (e.g. keeping the complexity of a task to a minimum, so that attention is focused on the content).


Build on pupils’ prior knowledge, by:
• Identifying possible misconceptions and planning how to prevent these forming.
• Linking what pupils already know to what is being taught (e.g. explaining how new content builds on what is already known).
• Sequencing lessons so that pupils secure foundational knowledge before encountering more complex content.
• Encouraging pupils to share emerging understanding and points of confusion so that misconceptions can be addressed.


Increase likelihood of material being retained, by:
• Balancing exposition, repetition, practice and retrieval of critical knowledge and skills.

• Planning regular review and practice of key ideas and concepts over time.
• Designing practice, generation and retrieval tasks that provide just enough support so that pupils experience a high success rate when attempting challenging work.
• Increasing challenge with practice and retrieval as knowledge becomes more secure (e.g. by removing scaffolding, lengthening spacing or introducing interacting elements).

Notes

Learn that… statements are informed by the best available educational research; references and further reading are provided below.

Learn how to… statements are drawn from the wider evidence base including both academic research and additional guidance from expert practitioners.

Subject and Curriculum (Standard 3 – Demonstrate good subject and curriculum
knowledge)
Learn that… Learn how to…
1. A school’s curriculum enables it to set out its vision for the knowledge, skills and values that
its pupils will learn, encompassing the national curriculum within a coherent wider vision for
successful learning.
2. Secure subject knowledge helps teachers to motivate pupils and teach effectively.
3. Ensuring pupils master foundational concepts and knowledge before moving on is likely to
build pupils’ confidence and help them succeed.
4. Anticipating common misconceptions within particular subjects is also an important aspect of
curricular knowledge; working closely with colleagues to develop an understanding of likely
misconceptions is valuable.
5. Explicitly teaching pupils the knowledge and skills they need to succeed within particular subject areas is beneficial.
6. In order for pupils to think critically, they must have a secure understanding of knowledgewithin the subject area they are being asked to think critically about.
7. In all subject areas, pupils learn new ideas by linking those ideas to existing knowledge,
organising this knowledge into increasingly complex mental models (or “schemata”); carefully sequencing teaching to facilitate this process is important.
8. Pupils are likely to struggle to transfer what has been learnt in one discipline to a new or unfamiliar context.
9. To access the curriculum, early literacy provides fundamental knowledge; reading comprises two elements: word reading and language comprehension; systematic synthetic phonics is
the most effective approach for teaching pupils to decode.
10. Every teacher can improve pupils’ literacy, including by explicitly teaching reading, writing
and oral language skills specific to individual disciplines.


Deliver a carefully sequenced and coherent curriculum, by:
• Identifying essential concepts, knowledge, skills and principles of the subject and providing opportunity for all pupils to learn and master these critical components.
• Ensuring pupils’ thinking is focused on key ideas within the subject.
• Working with experienced colleagues to accumulate and refine a collection of powerful analogies, illustrations, examples, explanations and demonstrations.
• Using resources and materials aligned with the school curriculum (e.g. textbooks or shared resources designed by experienced colleagues that carefully sequence content).
• Being aware of common misconceptions and discussing with experienced colleagues how to help pupils master important concepts.


Support pupils to build increasingly complex mental models, by:
• Discussing curriculum design with experienced colleagues and balancing exposition, repetition, practice of critical skills and
knowledge.
• Revisiting the big ideas of the subject over time and teaching key concepts through a range of examples.
• Drawing explicit links between new content and the core concepts and principles in the subject.

Develop fluency, by:
• Providing tasks that support pupils to learn key ideas securely (e.g. quizzing pupils so they develop fluency with times tables).
• Using retrieval and spaced practice to build automatic recall of key knowledge.

Help pupils apply knowledge and skills to other contexts, by:
• Ensuring pupils have relevant domain-specific knowledge, especially when being asked to think critically within a subject.
• Interleaving concrete and abstract examples, slowly withdrawing concrete examples and drawing attention to the underlying structure of
problems.


Develop pupils’ literacy, by:
• Demonstrating a clear understanding of systematic synthetic phonics, particularly if teaching early reading and spelling.
• Supporting younger pupils to become fluent readers and to write fluently and legibly.
• Teaching unfamiliar vocabulary explicitly and planning for pupils to be repeatedly exposed to high-utility and high-frequency vocabulary in what is taught.
• Modelling reading comprehension by asking questions, making predictions, and summarising when reading.
• Promoting reading for pleasure (e.g. by using a range of whole class reading approaches and regularly reading high-quality texts to children).
• Modelling and requiring high-quality oral language, recognising that spoken language underpins the development of reading and writing (e.g. requiring pupils to respond to questions in full sentences, making use of relevant technical vocabulary).
• Teaching different forms of writing by modelling planning, drafting and editing.

Notes

Learn that… statements are informed by the best available educational research; references and further reading are provided below.

Learn how to… statements are drawn from the wider evidence base including both academic research and additional guidance from expert practitioners.

Classroom Practice (Standard 4 – Plan and teach well structured lessons)
Learn that… Learn how to…
  1. Effective teaching can transform pupils’ knowledge, capabilities and beliefs about learning.
  2. Effective teachers introduce new material in steps, explicitly linking new ideas to what has been previously studied and learned.
  3. Modelling helps pupils understand new processes and ideas; good models make abstract ideas concrete and accessible.
  4. Guides, scaffolds and worked examples can help pupils apply new ideas, but should be gradually removed as pupil expertise increases.
  5. Explicitly teaching pupils metacognitive strategies linked to subject knowledge, including how to plan, monitor and evaluate, supports independence and academic success.
  6. Questioning is an essential tool for teachers; questions can be used for many purposes, including to check pupils’ prior knowledge, assess understanding and break down problems.
  7. High-quality classroom talk can support pupils to articulate key ideas, consolidate understanding and extend their vocabulary.
  8. Practice is an integral part of effective teaching; ensuring pupils have repeated opportunities to practise, with appropriate guidance and support, increases success.
  9. Paired and group activities can increase pupil success, but to work together effectively pupils need guidance, support and practice.
  10. How pupils are grouped is also important; care should be taken to monitor the impact of groupings on pupil attainment, behaviour and motivation.
  11. Homework can improve pupil outcomes, particularly for older pupils, but it is likely that the quality of homework and its relevance to main class teaching is more important than the amount set.



Plan effective lessons, by:

• Using modelling, explanations and scaffolds, acknowledging that novices need more structure early in a domain.
• Enabling critical thinking and problem solving by first teaching the necessary foundational content knowledge.
• Removing scaffolding only when pupils are achieving a high degree of success in applying previously taught material.
• Providing sufficient opportunity for pupils to consolidate and practise applying new knowledge and skills.
• Breaking tasks down into constituent components when first setting up independent practice (e.g. using tasks that scaffold pupils through meta-cognitive and procedural processes).


Make good use of expositions, by:
• Starting expositions at the point of current pupil understanding.
• Combining a verbal explanation with a relevant graphical representation of the same concept or process, where appropriate.
• Using concrete representation of abstract ideas (e.g. making use of analogies, metaphors, examples and non-examples).

Model effectively, by:
• Narrating thought processes when modelling to make explicit how experts think (e.g. asking questions aloud that pupils should considerwhen working independently and drawing pupils’ attention to links with prior knowledge).
• Making the steps in a process memorable and ensuring pupils can recall them (e.g. naming them, developing mnemonics, or linking to memorable stories).
• Exposing potential pitfalls and explaining how to avoid them.


Stimulate pupil thinking and check for understanding, by:
• Planning activities around what you want pupils to think hard about.
• Including a range of types of questions in class discussions to extend and challenge pupils (e.g. by modelling new vocabulary or asking pupils to justify answers).
• Providing appropriate wait time between question and response where more developed responses are required.
• Considering the factors that will support effective collaborative or paired work (e.g. familiarity with routines, whether pupils have the necessary prior knowledge and how pupils are grouped).
• Providing scaffolds for pupil talk to increase the focus and rigour of dialogue.

Notes

Learn that… statements are informed by the best available educational research; references and further reading are provided below.

Learn how to… statements are drawn from the wider evidence base including both academic research and additional guidance from expert practitioners.

Adaptive Teaching (Standard 5 – Adapt teaching)
Learn that… Learn how to…
1. Pupils are likely to learn at different rates and
to require different levels and types of support
from teachers to succeed.
2. Seeking to understand pupils’ differences,
including their different levels of prior
knowledge and potential barriers to learning, is
an essential part of teaching.
3. Adapting teaching in a responsive way,
including by providing targeted support to
pupils who are struggling, is likely to increase
pupil success.
4. Adaptive teaching is less likely to be valuable if
it causes the teacher to artificially create
distinct tasks for different groups of pupils or to
set lower expectations for particular pupils.
5. Flexibly grouping pupils within a class to
provide more tailored support can be effective,
but care should be taken to monitor its impact
on engagement and motivation, particularly for
low attaining pupils.
6. There is a common misconception that pupils
have distinct and identifiable learning styles.
This is not supported by evidence and attempting to tailor lessons to learning styles is
unlikely to be beneficial.
7. Pupils with special educational needs or
disabilities are likely to require additional or
adapted support; working closely with
colleagues, families and pupils to understand
barriers and identify effective strategies is
essential. 



Develop an understanding of different pupil needs, by:
• Identifying pupils who need new content further broken down.
• Making use of formative assessment.
• Working closely with the Special Educational Needs Co-ordinator (SENCO) and special education professionals and the Designated Safeguarding Lead.
• Using the SEND Code of Practice, which provides additional guidance on supporting pupils with SEND effectively.

Provide opportunity for all pupils to experience success, by:
• Adapting lessons, whilst maintaining high expectations for all, so that all pupils have the opportunity to meet expectations.
• Balancing input of new content so that pupils master important concepts.
• Making effective use of teaching assistants.

Meet individual needs without creating unnecessary workload, by:
• Making use of well-designed resources (e.g. textbooks).
• Planning to connect new content with pupils' existing knowledge or providing additional pre-teaching if pupils lack critical knowledge.
• Building in additional practice or removing unnecessary expositions.
• Reframing questions to provide greater scaffolding or greater stretch.

• Considering carefully whether intervening within lessons with individuals and small groups would be more efficient and effective than planning different lessons for different groups of pupils.


Group pupils effectively, by:
• Applying high expectations to all groups, and ensuring all pupils have access to a rich curriculum.
• Changing groups regularly, avoiding the perception that groups are fixed.
• Ensuring that any groups based on attainment are subject specific.

Notes

Learn that… statements are informed by the best available educational research; references and further reading are provided below.

Learn how to… statements are drawn from the wider evidence base including both academic research and additional guidance from expert practitioners.

Assessment (Standard 6 – Make accurate and productive use of assessment)
Learn that… Learn how to…
1. Effective assessment is critical to teaching because it provides teachers with information about pupils’ understanding and needs.
2. Good assessment helps teachers avoid being over-influenced by potentially misleading
factors, such as how busy pupils appear.
3. Before using any assessment, teachers should be clear about the decision it will be used to
support and be able to justify its use.
4. To be of value, teachers use information from assessments to inform the decisions they make; in turn, pupils must be able to act on feedback for it to have an effect.
5. High-quality feedback can be written or verbal; it is likely to be accurate and clear, encourage further effort, and provide specific guidance on how to improve.
6. Over time, feedback should support pupils to monitor and regulate their own learning.
7. Working with colleagues to identify efficient approaches to assessment is important; assessment can become onerous and have a
disproportionate impact on workload.



Provide high-quality feedback, by:
• Focusing on specific actions for pupils and providing time for pupils to respond to feedback.
• Appreciating that pupils’ responses to feedback can vary depending on a range of social factors (e.g. the message the feedback contains or the age of the child).
• Scaffolding self-assessment by sharing model work with pupils, highlighting key details.
• Thinking carefully about how to ensure feedback is specific and helpful when using peer- or self-assessment.

Make marking manageable and effective, by:
• Recording data only when it is useful for improving pupil outcomes.
• Working with colleagues to identify efficient approaches to marking and alternative approaches to providing feedback (e.g. using whole class feedback or well supported peer- and self-assessment).
• Using verbal feedback during lessons in place of written feedback after lessons where possible.
• Understanding that written marking is only one form of feedback.
• Reducing the opportunity cost of marking (e.g. by using abbreviations and codes in written feedback).
• Prioritising the highlighting of errors related to misunderstandings, rather than careless mistakes when marking.

Notes

Learn that… statements are informed by the best available educational research; references and further reading are provided below.

Learn how to… statements are drawn from the wider evidence base including both academic research and additional guidance from expert practitioners.

Managing Behaviour (Standard 7 – Manage behaviour effectively)
Learn that… Learn how to…
  1. Establishing and reinforcing routines, including through positive reinforcement, can help create an effective learning environment.
  2. A predictable and secure environment benefits all pupils, but is particularly valuable for pupils with special educational needs.
  3. The ability to self-regulate one’s emotions affects pupils’ ability to learn, success in school and future lives.
  4. Teachers can influence pupils’ resilience and beliefs about their ability to succeed, by ensuring all pupils have the opportunity to experience meaningful success.
  5. Building effective relationships is easier when pupils believe that their feelings will be considered and understood.
  6. Pupils are motivated by intrinsic factors (related to their identity and values) and extrinsic factors (related to reward).
  7. Pupils’ investment in learning is also driven by
    their prior experiences and perceptions of
    success and failure.




Develop a positive, predictable and safe environment for pupils, by:
• Establishing a supportive and inclusive environment with a predictable system of reward and sanction in the classroom.
• Working alongside colleagues as part of a wider system of behaviour management (e.g. recognising responsibilities and understanding the right to assistance and training from senior colleagues).
• Giving manageable, specific and sequential instructions.
• Checking pupils’ understanding of instructions before a task begins.
• Using consistent language and non-verbal signals for common classroom directions.
• Using early and least-intrusive interventions as an initial response to low level disruption.
• Responding quickly to any behaviour or bullying that threatens emotional safety.

Establish effective routines and expectations, by:
• Creating and explicitly teaching routines in line with the school ethos that maximise time for learning (e.g. setting and reinforcing expectations about key transition points).
• Practising routines at the beginning of the school year.
• Reinforcing routines (e.g. by articulating the link between time on task and success).

Build trusting relationships, by:
• Liaising with parents, carers and colleagues to better understand pupils’ individual circumstances and how they can be supported to meet high academic and behavioural expectations.
• Responding consistently to pupil behaviour.

Motivate pupils, by:
• Supporting pupils to master challenging content, which builds towards long-term goals.
• Providing opportunities for pupils to articulate their long-term goals and helping them to see how these are related to their success in school.
• Helping pupils to journey from needing extrinsic motivation to being motivated to work intrinsically.

Notes

Learn that… statements are informed by the best available educational research; references and further reading are provided below.

Learn how to… statements are drawn from the wider evidence base including both academic research and additional guidance from expert practitioners.

Professional Behaviours (Standard 8 – Fulfil wider professional responsibilities)
Learn that… Learn how to…
  1. Effective professional development is likely to be sustained over time, involve expert support or coaching and opportunities for collaboration.
  2. Reflective practice, supported by feedback from and observation of experienced colleagues, professional debate, and learning from educational research, is also likely to support improvement. 3. Teachers can make valuable contributions to the wider life of the school in a broad range of ways, including by supporting and developing effective professional relationships with colleagues.
  3. Building effective relationships with parents, carers and families can improve pupils’ motivation, behaviour and academic success.
  4. Teaching assistants (TAs) can support pupils more effectively when they are prepared for lessons by teachers, and when TAs supplement rather than replace support from teachers.
  5. SENCOs, pastoral leaders, careers advisors and other specialist colleagues also have valuable expertise and can ensure that appropriate support is in place for pupils.
  6. Engaging in high-quality professional development can help teachers improve.




Develop as a professional, by:
• Engaging in professional development focused on developing an area of practice with clear intentions for impact on pupil outcomes, sustained over time with built-in opportunities for practice.
• Strengthening pedagogical and subject knowledge by participating in wider networks.
• Seeking challenge, feedback and critique from mentors and other colleagues in an open and trusting working environment.
• Engaging critically with research and discussing evidence with colleagues.
• Reflecting on progress made, recognising strengths and weaknesses and identifying next steps for further improvement.

Build effective working relationships, by:
• Contributing positively to the wider school culture and developing a feeling of shared responsibility for improving the lives of all pupils within the school.
• Seeking ways to support individual colleagues and working as part of a team.
• Communicating with parents and carers proactively and making effective use of parents’ evenings to engage parents and carers in their children’s schooling.

• Working closely with the SENCO and other professionals supporting pupils with additional needs, making explicit links between
interventions delivered outside of lessons with classroom teaching.
• Sharing the intended lesson outcomes with teaching assistants ahead of lessons.
• Ensuring that support provided by teaching assistants in lessons is additional to, rather than a replacement for, support from the teacher.
• Knowing who to contact with any safeguarding concerns.

Manage workload and wellbeing, by:
• Using and personalising systems and routines to support efficient time and task management.
• Understanding the right to support (e.g. to deal with misbehaviour).
• Collaborating with colleagues to share the load of planning and preparation and making use of shared resources (e.g. textbooks).
• Protecting time for rest and recovery.

Notes

Learn that… statements are informed by the best available educational research; references and further reading are provided below.

Learn how to… statements are drawn from the wider evidence base including both academic research and additional guidance from expert practitioners.

DfE Frequently Asked Questions

The DfE has published some useful FAQs for school leaders, Early Career Teachers and Early Career Mentors. Please access them using the links below:

ECF Induction and Training - Additional Information for Early Career Teachers

ECF Induction and Training - Additional Information for Early Career Mentors

ECF Induction and Training - Additional Information for School Leaders

 

Funding

The Early Career Development programme is freely available for all state-maintained schools and academies in England.

All state-funded schools offering statutory induction will receive additional funding to deliver the ECF  reforms.

The funding will cover:

  • 5% off timetable in the second year of induction for all early career teachers to undertake induction activities including training and mentoring
  • mentors for early career teachers in the second year of induction - this is based on 20 hours of mentoring across the academic year
Funding (year 2) England (excluding the London Area) Inner London Area Outer London Area  Fringe Area
Rounded cost per Early Career Teacher £1,200 £1,500 £1,400 £1,300
Rounded cost per mentor £900 £1,100 £1,000 £900
Total £2,100 £2,600 £2,400 £2,200

Funding is calculated by taking the average salary of mentors and early career teachers, split by region, and uses the hourly rate to calculate a total funding figure.

This data will be collected through the school workforce census to ensure there is minimal administrative burden for schools. State schools undertaking statutory induction will receive a single payment for their early career teachers and mentors in the summer of the second year of induction.

Schools using a DfE-funded, provider-led programme will also receive additional funding for mentor backfill, as follows:

Mentor’s unit cost (years 1 and 2 time off timetable for training) England (excluding the London area) Inner London area Outer London area Fringe area
36h cost (2 years of training) £1576.10 £1929.24 £1737.14 £1623.24

Registering ECTs and Mentors

The registration process is simple. The DfE step-by-step guidance can be accessed here

  • School Induction Tutors must register their ECTs and Mentors on the DfE Online Service (BPN then collect additional details directly from the ECTs and ECMs to enable allocation to their local training group)

Not yet registered with us?

  • If your school has not yet had an ECT, or is changing Lead Provider to Best Practice Network, you will be prompted with instructions  for next steps within the DfE Online Service 
  • If your school has not yet had an ECT or is changing Lead Provider, the school will also need to register with Best Practice Network here

Things to note

  • Schools already working with Best Practice Network do not need to re-register with BPN
  • Schools do not need to re-register ECTs and ECMs moving into the second year of their ECF programme
If you would like to know more about our Early Career Framework programme before registering then please complete the contact form below.

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