Enhancing teacher retention through the early career framework

A new report by the Teacher Development Trust and commissioned by Gatsby makes recommendations on how to improve the early career framework.

Teacher supply and retention remains a stubborn problem.

The latest Initial Teacher Training Census (2023-24) revealed that only half the secondary postgraduate teachers needed were recruited into teacher education in the last year, with just 17% of the target number of physics teachers. Physics and maths teachers leave the profession in greater numbers than other teachers which can only mean one thing: too many pupils are not taught by appropriately qualified teachers who have with good subject knowledge.

Continuing professional development (CPD) can play a critical role in the retention of teachers, and it is crucial that teachers’ early experiences of CPD are the best they can be. This is why Gatsby, building on existing good practice and the changes and improvements to the Early Career Framework (ECF) recently made by government, is committed to finding out what else can be done to support early career teachers. We also set out to explore if, with a greater emphasis on flexibility and subject-specific support, the Early Career Framework has the potential to both boost retention and ensure more young people benefit from being taught by specialist teachers.

We supported the Teacher Development Trust to work with a panel of experts, led by Professor Sam Twiselton to review literature and gather stakeholder perspectives on how the Early Career Framework could be developed.

The final report An Exploratory Study of the Early Career Framework makes the following recommendations to government to:

1. Plan for long-term strategic mentoring, considering staffing and funding for sustained support. This aligns with the need to create a Teachers’ Professional Development Fund, ensuring sustained investment in mentoring.
2. Allocate funding for protected time and resources for mentors to ensure effective support. This echoes the importance of fully funding the 'Golden Thread', including resources for mentors to carry out their roles successfully.
3. Recognise mentoring as vital for teacher development, exploring formal recognition and career pathways. This relates to the importance of providing guidance on career pathways and CPD options without linking to promotion or pay, emphasising the importance of mentor recognition.
4. Support flexibility in Early Career Framework (ECF) delivery to reduce administrative burdens on schools and allow variation in content sequence, easing cognitive load for participants. This corresponds to the focus on individual teacher needs in CPD funded by the entitlement, avoiding unnecessary administrative burdens.
5. Ensure leadership training incorporates understanding of the ECF to effectively support Early Career Teachers (ECTs) and mentors. This ties with the need to review leadership NPQs to ensure they support CPD conversations effectively, including understanding the ECF.
6. Update Teachers’ Standards to align with the ECF, reflecting contemporary understanding and expectations. This corresponds to the call for an independent review of Teachers’ Standards for Professional Development to reflect current understanding and expectations.
7. Clarify responsibilities for subject leaders in ECT development at both local and national levels, ensuring that where subject-specific support is not available through mentoring, it is available through other routes and channels locally. This ties with the need for evaluation to inform understanding of how schools utilise funding, ensuring effective support structures like subject-specific development.
8. Enable subject-specific networking, possibly aligning national subject hub networks with ECF entitlements. This relates to the call for creating a Teachers’ Professional Development Fund to seed CPD development in areas of need, such as subject-specific CPD.

With a greater emphasis on flexibility and subject-specific support the Early Career Framework has the potential to boost retention and ensure more young people benefit from being taught by specialist teachers.

Read the full report here.