The consultation on ‘Strengthening Qualified Teacher Status (QTS) and Improving Teacher Career Progression’ in May is, in the National Association for School Based teacher Training ‘s view, both welcome and brings lots of positive discussion points. But what does it mean, and how will it affect recruitment and retention?
Firstly, the key thing to note is that the DfE has set these proposals within a wider strategy around recruitment, retention, workload and professional development. It is pleasing that the DfE plans to continue to work with the sector as the proposals evolve. As a profession, we have long been asking to be done ‘with’ rather than done ‘to’, and it seems these proposals take this approach.
Under the proposed changes, QTS will remain where it is, at the end of the ITT year, with an extended induction period of two years. To support this, an Early Career Framework (ECF) is to be developed which aims to ensure “consistency of support in this crucial phase of their (teacher’s) career”. Semantics are important here. If the changes are to have a positive, rather than a detrimental effect on teacher recruitment, it is important that everybody understands the intention behind these reforms.
The extended induction period is not about ‘more hoops to jump through’ or additional scrutiny over a longer period of time. If it is perceived to be such, it may dissuade new entrants to the profession – the last thing anybody wants. In fact, the intent is that this is a longer period of support and guidance with clear entitlements (and entitlement is, I think, a key word) to professional development, access to mentoring and coaching and, potentially, reduced timetabling – although the extension of the Newly Qualified Teacher (NQT) timetable has yet to be agreed. Crucially, the extended induction will not impact salaries and “teachers in their second year will have the same opportunity to advance through pay scales that they currently have”. There is no intention for the longer induction to create a perverse disincentive to potential teachers and this commitment to maintaining current pay scales is a welcome one.
The Early Career Framework may well be the key to making these changes a success. By clearly setting out the entitlement to support that every early-career teacher should receive, it helps clarify issues over professional development, and the coaching and mentoring and, as a result the guidance should become far more transparent and less dependent on the whims of a particular school leadership team.
There are, of course, potential pitfalls which must be avoided at all costs. The first is that the ECF must not become a political stick with which to beat teachers and schools. By committing to entitling early career teachers to more support, we must not create a system fraught with accountability and data gathering which increases workload and stress. The language used in the framework must be about guidance, nurture, support and wellbeing and should not create a tick-list of training events which must be sat through for the sake of a paper trail.