New ITT framework involves ‘short-term pain for long-term gain’ – DfE advisor
The new initial teacher training (ITT) content framework from the government won’t be available until the spring, meaning providers will have just months to carry out the necessary changes, reports Schools Week.
Rachel Hayward, policy advisor for the Department for Education (DfE), also said that they anticipate Ofsted to be evaluating providers based on the new framework from September 2020.
Teacher trainers are frustrated by the timescale, calling it “massively too short” and expressing concerns about the increase to workloads. In response, Hayward said: “I think it’s going to be sort of seen as short-term pain for long-term gain.”
Hayward's remark was made during a speech at last week’s National Association of School Based Teacher Trainers annual conference, and received groans and boos from the audience.
The early roll-out of the framework is expected in September 2020 as part of Opportunity North East, with the full roll-out planned for September the following year.
Hayward said she hoped the new content framework will “seamlessly move” into the early career framework and needs to “line up” with this timescale.
The new ITT core content framework includes minimum experience and knowledge requirements trainee teachers are expected to cover during training. It has a strong focus on mentoring and expert professional support offered in schools.
Schools will be required to add “bespoke content” to the standard framework, Hayward noted.
However, Hayward was told that the timescale to implementation left providers potentially with only two months to “work on it and be fully accountable to Ofsted.”
A member of the audience said: “At what point can we see any draft? We are about to hit our big assessment time for our current trainees, many of us [want] to publish training plans before we break up in July. That time frame is massively short for us to implement what we want to implement.”
Hayward told the audience that she would raise these concerns with ministers, stressing that if the implementation timescale seemed “unreasonable” they would look at it again.
Do you agree that the timescale to implementation is unreasonable?