The Early Career Framework (ECF) is an entitlement to a fully-funded, two-year package of structured support for all early career teachers (ECTs), including funded time off timetable in the second year of teaching and additional support from school-based mentors. The ECF formed part of the Department for Education’s (DfE’s) Teacher Recruitment and Retention Strategy, published in 2019, and arose from a desire to improve the self-efficacy and quality of teaching of ECTs, as well as their job satisfaction, well-being and intentions to remain in teaching.
Prior to its nationwide implementation in September 2021, the DfE piloted an early roll-out (ERO) of the ECF the North East, Greater Manchester, Bradford, and Doncaster areas. Four providers (Ambition Institute, Education Development Trust, Teach First and the University College London’s Early Career Teacher Consortium) were commissioned to develop and deliver a Full Induction Programme (FIP) for ECTs and their in-school mentors, comprising ECT training, self-directed study, mentoring sessions, and mentor training. The ECF ERO was delivered across the academic years 2020 – 2021 (year one) and 2021 – 2022 (year two).
Improving the quality of support offered to ECTs has the potential to improve the retention and skills of the teacher workforce significantly. As part of the EEF’s support for the ECF, and building on the two delivery pilots (Career Support – Online Teacher Development and Early Career Support) undertaken in 2019 ‑2020, the EEF commissioned NFER to undertake an independent evaluation of the ECF ERO. The team evaluated the impact of the programme on ECT retention and other outcomes using a quasi-experimental design, and conducted an implementation and process evaluation to explore the effectiveness of delivery and the perceptions of ECTS, mentors and induction leads on outcomes.
The evaluation found that ECTs in schools that participated in the ECF were no more or less likely to have remained in the state-funded sector after two years of induction than ECTs in schools that did not. However, participating ECTs were more likely to remain in their original induction school than comparison ECTs. Findings from the IPE suggest that the programme enabled deeper ECT-mentor relationships, which may have strengthened the bond between ECTs and their schools.
Other perceived benefits of the ECF ERO included an improvement in ECTs’ teaching practice, self-efficacy, confidence, and job satisfaction, as well as mentors’ skills and confidence in coaching. Nonetheless, ECTs and mentors in schools that participated in the ECF ERO faced significant workload challenges, and surfaced concerns about repetition and tailoring of programme content. The DfE has taken steps to address these issues as part of continuous improvement to the ECF, meaning that the findings of this evaluation may not be generalisable to the national roll-out of the policy.
Furthermore, the delivery and evaluation of the ECF ERO was affected by the Covid-19 pandemic. In addition to face-to-face activities being shifted online in year one of implementation, the DfE took extra measures to support ECTs in all schools, leading some comparison ECTs to access ECF-based materials they were not originally intended to. This may have affected the study’s findings, particularly regarding retention, giving the findings a low to moderate security rating.
Overall, while there is evidence to suggest that some elements of the ECF ERO were effective in making ECTs feel better supported, there is limited evidence to suggest it influenced their intentions to remain in teaching. The findings of this evaluation suggest the need for further exploring the impact of the ECF ERO on retention in the longer term and continuing to monitor the effectiveness of the ECF’s national roll-out as it becomes embedded in the system, as well as identifying effective approaches to support teacher retention more generally.
Note that, in addition to the evaluation of the ECF ERO, the EEF commissioned NFER to undertake a nimble trial to explore the impact of incentives paid to schools on mentors’ engagement with training during year one of implementation. A total of 216 schools being supported by Ambition Institute and Teach First were included in the trial, with schools that were randomly allocated to the intervention group receiving an incentive payment of £775 per mentorship (mentor-ECT pairing). There was no evidence that the financial incentives provided to schools had an impact on the time mentors spent on their training, or on their dropout from the FIP or the mentorship more generally. This may have been affected by the timing of the incentive distribution, but there is no evidence to confirm whether this was the case.