Delivering a boost to early career teachers

When the early career framework (ECF) was rolled out nationwide in 2021 it was heralded as an initiative that would have a profound impact on the professional development and support available to new teachers in the first two years of their career.

Until that point continuing professional development and mentoring was down to the actions of individual schools and trusts and for some new teachers it was often a case of sink or swim.

The ECF is helping to change that in a time when the retention of early career teachers (ECTs) remains a key priority.

Best Practice Network is playing a major role in the delivery of this programme across the country. Now, in the second year of its national rollout, BPN’s partners are delivering training to more than 10,000 early career teachers and mentors.

BPN evaluations of the ECF programme show that participants like it. Of the 98 ECT groups completing a January 2023 evaluation, facilitation has been rated particularly highly, with more than nine out of 10 participants giving facilitation a positive rating.

“We know this is having a significant impact on new teachers and their children in the classroom,” says Kelly McKay, Director of the Early Career Framework at BPN.

That’s being echoed by BPN’s partners. One of the largest is Chiltern Learning Trust, which encompasses two large teaching school hubs covering north and east Hertfordshire, Bedfordshire, Luton and Milton Keynes.

The trust delivers ECF training through a local partner network to 1,000 first and second year teachers and 900 mentors, as well as NPQs.

“It’s still too early to get a statistical sense of what the impact is on the retention of new teachers but the signs are very good,” says Cheryl Abbiss, ECF Lead at Chiltern Learning Trust.

“We are seeing less movement of early career teachers when compared to NQT cohorts – we were probably losing two out of 100 NQTs and the figure now is two out of a thousand.

“When they hit the second year of the ECF they have a lightbulb moment. They’ve built their confidence through the first year so by year 2 they are using that knowledge and they are flying. They are learning so much more and they are a genuine part of the school team. They get that from the programme and the networking opportunities that we’ve built around the programme.”

Cheryl and her ECF team see BPN as true collaborators in the delivery of ECF. “The BPN team are really receptive,” she says. “We aren’t afraid of saying if an improvement could be made because we know they will listen and accommodate us. We did have concerns about the amount of time mentors were having to dedicate to the programme so we’ve worked with them to get some changes made.

“BPN shares the same ambitions as us for our children. Whenever you talk to the programme or partnership teams it always come back to the same thing: if what we are asking for is about changing things for the better for the children”

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