Question to the Department for Education:

To ask the Secretary of State for Education, what recent steps his Department has taken to help support the building of leadership skills for school management in (a) primary and (b) secondary schools.

The Department is creating a world-class teacher development system by transforming the training and support teachers and headteachers receive at every stage of their career.

Each career stage is underpinned by evidenced-based frameworks that set out what teachers will learn and know after completing the programme. The frameworks build on and complement one another and have been independently reviewed by the Education Endowment Foundation to ensure they draw on the best available evidence of high-quality teaching and school leadership.

This ‘golden thread’ of high-quality support and training begins with Initial Teacher Training based on the new ITT Core Content Framework, progresses through an extended free training entitlement over the first 2 years of a teacher’s career through the Early Career Framework reforms and leads to our suite of National Professional Qualifications (NPQs) which support teachers and headteachers to develop their leadership skills at each stage of their career. This golden thread helps establish strong professional development cultures both within individual schools and across the country, elevating the quality of teaching and leadership and ultimately improving pupil outcomes. In addition, we continue to fund the High Potential Initial Teacher Training and Leadership Development Programme (HPITT), delivered by Teach First which aims to raise the attainment of disadvantaged pupils by recruiting, placing and training outstanding graduates and experienced professionals in disadvantaged schools.

The suite of NPQs includes four leadership qualifications that support professionals to develop the knowledge, behaviours, and networks they need to be a high-performing teacher at different levels. The Early Headship Coaching offer is also available to professionals in their first five years in headship. This offer is a targeted support package which provides structured unassessed support based on the best available evidence about what makes an effective headteacher.

As part of the Government’s long-term education recovery plan, £184 million of new funding will enable 150,000 education professionals employed at state-funded organisations across the sector to access fully funded training scholarships for NPQs. This support will be available in the 2022/23 and 2023/24 academic years to help more professionals than ever before to access the qualifications.

The Department also announced on 26 May 2022 that the School-Led Development Trust would establish the National Institute of Teaching (NIoT). The NIoT will be an exemplary provider of our teacher development programmes, including NPQs and the National Leaders of Education programmes, ensuring high quality support to struggling and vulnerable schools by raising standards and building their leadership capacity. It will also utilise cutting-edge research and disseminate best practice to further improve the quality of teacher and leadership training nationwide.