Teachers: Training

(asked on 24th May 2021) - View Source

Question to the Department for Education:

To ask the Secretary of State for Education, what steps he plans to take to ensure that teacher training focuses on (a) trauma and attachment challenges and (b) support for children in the care system and those children who are adopted.


Answered by
Nick Gibb Portrait
Nick Gibb
This question was answered on 28th May 2021

The Government has provided £8 million for a Wellbeing for Education Return training programme, which has been used by more than 90% of councils since its launch last summer, to provide free expert training, support and resources for young people, staff or parents dealing with additional pressures from the last year – including trauma, anxiety, or grief.

Teaching quality is the most important in-school factor in improving outcomes for children and young people. Reforms to teacher training and early career support are a critical part of the Department’s plans to improve school standards for all.

From September 2021, all new teachers will benefit from at least 3 years of evidence-based training, professional development and support. This starts with initial teacher training (ITT), based on the new ITT Core Content Framework, and is followed by a new two-year entitlement to high quality professional development and support underpinned by the Early Career Framework.

The ITT Core Content Framework sets out a mandatory minimum entitlement, describing the fundamental knowledge and skills that all new entrants to the profession need to effectively teach all children. It is not intended to be a curriculum and it remains for individual providers to design a coherent and well sequenced curriculum appropriate for the subject, phase, age range and needs of the children that trainees will be teaching. Courses must be designed so that trainees can demonstrate that they meet all the Teachers' Standards at the appropriate level.

From September 2021, the Government is funding an entitlement for all early career teachers in England to access high quality professional development and support at the start of their career.

New teachers will now receive development support and training over two years instead of one. The support for early career teachers includes:

o 5% off timetable in the second year of induction for all early career teachers to undertake induction activities including training and mentoring.

o Freely available high quality development materials based on the Early Career Framework.

o A dedicated mentor and support for these mentors.

o Funding for mentors to spend time with early career teachers in the second year of induction. This is based on 20 hours of mentoring across the academic year.

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