What is the ECF?
The Early Career Framework (or ‘ECF’) sets out what early career teachers should learn about and learn how to do when entering the teaching profession. ECF training programmes were rolled out nationally from autumn 2021 and provided an entitlement to a structured two-year package of high-quality professional development for early career teachers.
Why is the ECF important?
A new teacher’s first couple of years within the profession can be incredibly formative to their overall career trajectory and longevity. Existing research shows the rate at which teachers improve their practice can be influenced by the developmental experiences they have within schools, particularly at the early stages of their careers (read more here).
The ambition of ECF training programmes is to ensure that the professional support early career teachers receive in England is of a consistently high quality and provides them with the necessary time and guidance to develop into effective practitioners.
What have we learned from a year of the ECF?
This week, the Department for Education (DfE) published a process evaluation looking at the first year of ECF delivery. As is to be expected for the rollout of a reform of this nature, the report finds both strengths and challenges that have arisen within the first year of the programme.
After the first year of their ECF enrolment, early career teachers developed greater confidence in behaviour management, assessment, and adaptive teaching. This gives an indication that the ECF programmes may be moving participants’ practice forward in some specific areas. Given that these areas were also central to the ECF framework itself, it is also a positive indication that the model of developing professional development programmes from a policy framework has potential for supporting effective practice.
The process evaluation also helpfully details some of the challenges that schools have experienced through the implementation of the policy. According to the report:
- Half-way through their induction on programmes, one out of five early career teachers were unclear about how many hours per week they were required to spend on their induction, and almost half of ECF mentors knew little to nothing about the development, opportunities and support available to themselves.
- Over time, most early career teachers found some of the support offered to be repetitive and inflexible to their needs, a possible consequence of them progressing as practitioners and requiring greater tailoring to specific areas for improvement.
The EEF’s Guide to Implementation makes clear that the implementation of any new policy or approach is a process, not an event. Just as a school leader rolling out a new policy would carefully monitor progress and thoughtfully adapt strategies based on feedback, so DfE will need to do the same. It will be important for the DfE, working with schools and lead providers, to continue to make adjustments to the overall policy implementation. This could include amplifying key messages around new statutory induction entitlements and the expectations of early career teachers and mentors. They might also want to consider how and where greater flexibility could be provided in the ways that ECF support is both delivered and accessed.
How can you contribute to the evolution of the ECF?
As well as adjusting the implementation of the ECF training programmes, the DfE announced in the ‘Opportunity for All’ white paper that they will update the contents of the framework from which the ECF training programmes have been developed. They’ll also update the Core Content Framework that sets out the minimum training entitlement for those doing initial teacher training. To do this, they will work with an Expert Steering and Advisory groups who will shape the review of these two important documents.
The Department for Education has launched a ‘Call for Evidence’ as part of the framework updates, which invites those with specialist expertise in education and pedagogy and knowledge of research to suggest recent, relevant, and high-quality research evidence that may inform amendments. This is an exciting opportunity for those interested in education evidence to feed into the iteration of these two important policy frameworks.
Working with the DfE, the EEF will review submitted evidence to consider whether it is robust, relevant, and helpfully builds upon the existing framework content. Frameworks host a range of different forms of evidence produced through different research methodologies, and the EEF will seek to make sure that the claims made within the frameworks are supported by appropriate methodologies. To find out more about the call for evidence and make a submission see here.