Establishment of an institute of teaching

In the Department for Education’s (DfE) Teacher Recruitment and Retention Strategy, published in January 2019, we committed to giving all teachers and school leaders access to high quality training and development at every stage of their career. The Initial Teacher Training (ITT) Core Content Framework will ensure that new entrants to the profession receive training based on the best available evidence, and through the implementation of the Early Career Framework (ECF) reforms, we will support teachers in the first years of their career with a structured two-year induction. The reformed suite of National Professional Qualifications (NPQs), and the NPQH Additional Support for New Head Teachers, are designed to help all teachers and school leaders to continue to develop their expertise throughout their careers. Together, these reforms will root teacher training and development in a shared, evidence-informed understanding of what works. We need a strong delivery infrastructure to make this a truly world-class training and development offer. We will support the creation of a new independent organisation, provisionally referred to as an institute of teaching (the “Institute”). Learning from the best teacher development organisations in the world, the Institute will become England’s flagship provider, showcasing delivery of the new ECF and our ambitious reforms to ITT and NPQs. It will become a national role model for how these reforms are delivered, and will support other organisations to understand and implement best practice in the delivery of teacher development. The Institute will work alongside ECF and NPQ lead providers and delivery partners to ensure the sector is able to collectively benefit from developing and understanding exemplary delivery of the new ECF and our ambitious reforms to ITT and NPQs. The Institute will be expected to exemplify how to deliver ITT, the ECF and the suite of NPQs by building, sequencing and delivering a coherent teacher development pathway from trainee through to executive headship. It will use expert understanding of evidence to inform and implement effective delivery approaches, create a world-leading faculty of subject specialists and expert teacher educators, and develop models of school partnership and placement that maximise the impact of school-based training experiences. As part of its role in supporting other organisations to understand best practice in teacher development delivery, the Institute will: contribute to the development of the teacher development evidence base by conducting primary research; build upon, synthesise and translate existing evidence; and expertly communicate the practical implications to the sector. We anticipate that the Institute will be an independent body with a separate legal entity from the supplier or suppliers that are appointed to establish and run it, and from the DfE. The Institute will be a national organisation that operates through at least four regional campuses from September 2022. We would not expect the Institute to be primarily based in London, though one of its 4+ campuses might operate there. We expect the Institute to begin mobilising and recruiting ECF and NPQ participants in 2021/22 and to be operating most of its core functions by September 2022. The first Institute cohorts for ECF and NPQ delivery will commence training in September 2022. The majority of ITT recruitment will commence from October 2022 with ITT delivery beginning from September 2023. Some level of ITT (for example, a small pilot cohort) should be delivered from September 2022. The Institute will register as a Higher Education provider with the Office for Students in order to acquire degree awarding powers. This will give the Institute the ability to independently award its own Postgraduate Certificates in Education (PGCEs) and validate the PGCEs of other providers. Additional information: Further information will be provided at the market engagements events.