At the beginning of the week, Camden Learning were delighted to host the first in a series of Camden Conversations, a new series of leadership discussions, with guest contributors who are architects of system change. We were delighted to virtually welcome Professor Sam Twiselton OBE, Director of Sheffield Institute of Education at Sheffield Hallam University. Sam, primarily discussed the new Early Career Framework: the implications and why school leaders should see this as a catalyst for school improvement. It was a valuable hour of learning and engagement with about 50 participants joining the session. As we locally grapple with the new and ambiguous world of Teaching School Hubs and what it might mean for Camden, it was useful to understand from Sam the detail surrounding ECF, the differences that exist across the providers and the approach that will be taken.

The Early Career Framework sets out the evidence base that underpins this new entitlement for the professional development of early career teachers, what they should learn about and how, during their first two years of teaching. The ECF is designed to make sure early career teachers focus on learning the things that make the most difference in the classroom and to their professional practice. The core induction programmes include high-quality development materials, underpinned by the ECF, which will support early career teachers to develop the essential knowledge and skills to set them up for a successful and fulfilling career in teaching. Schools have an opportunity to take advantage of the benefits of the ECF early by using the core induction programmes, in whichever way that best suits them and their early career teachers.

The Department for Education has selected four expert teacher training providers who have each developed their own core induction programme based on the Early Career Framework:

• Ambition Institute
• Education Development Trust
• Teach First
• UCL Early Career Teacher Consortium

Each set of materials cover the five core areas of the ECF (Behaviour Management, Pedagogy, Curriculum, Assessment and Professional behaviours). Although structured differently, each programme contains approximately the same amount of self-study material in terms of hours covered. Schools can use or draw upon any of the four core induction programmes published here in whichever way is most beneficial to them and their early career teachers.

The reason local engagement is essential, is that, not only will it impact on the development of our workforce in Camden, but also, the provider that we will engage with, will possibly be determined by the new, geographical Teaching School Hub that we are aligned to. Hearing from Sam Twiselton gave us an insight into the approach from Education Development Trust, I have also met with Hannah Blausten, who used to teach in Camden and now works at Ambition Institute and they have a slightly different approach. Although the ECF could be described as quite prescriptive, it would appear that schools don’t have much wiggle room as you have to stick very strictly to the ECF when designing it and the time requirements of NQTs and mentors are actually set by DFE. In terms of content, what I think we are looking for is a degree of flexibility in the programme, which really will have thought about NQTs at different starting points, how mentors can differentiate for their NQTs’ needs and how best to use the time of busy teachers and mentors. Again, I will update you when I know more about our local partnership with potential Teaching School Hubs and the timelines for not only the ECF but NPQs too.

Jon Abbey

Managing Director of Camden Learning