Question to the Department for Education:

To ask the Secretary of State for Education, what the statutory framework is for the accreditation of teachers in England; and whether her Department has plans to change that framework.

All teachers recommended for the award of qualified teacher status (QTS) must demonstrate that they meet the Teachers’ Standards in full, at the appropriate level (available at: https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/teachers-standards). Trainees undertaking a course of initial teacher training must also satisfy the requirements of the Secretary of State’s Criteria for ITT (available at: https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/initial-teacher-training-criteria), including having passed the professional skills tests in literacy and numeracy.

Our recent White Paper, Educational Excellence Everywhere, set out our proposals to replace the current QTS with a new, more challenging accreditation based on teachers’ effectiveness in the classroom. We will be setting out further detail of how and when we intend to implement the new system shortly.