Supporting early career teacher development with the Early Career Framework (FutureLearn)

The ECF will be applicable to all new teachers in England from 2021. This course is aimed at school leaders and mentor teachers who will play a part in implementing the ECF. The course will help you to understand how to plan for and support early career teacher professional development through the ECF.

You’ll learn about perspectives on teacher expertise and learning, including pedagogical methods of teacher education. You’ll discuss your own understanding of teacher expertise with peers, as well as your vision for teacher development in your setting.

You’ll explore how the ECF is designed to support early career teachers’ professional development. And you’ll consider what additional learning your early career teachers will need to prepare them fully for your setting.

Implement the Early Career Framework

You’ll be introduced to the importance of implementation planning. You’ll learn about findings from research and practice and use these to consider your approach to implementing the ECF.

You’ll explore the idea that mentoring is specialised practice and hear from mentors and early career teachers involved in the early roll-out of the ECF. You’ll begin to plan for high quality mentoring in your own ECF programme.

The course is delivered by UCL Institute of Education, a global leader in teacher education. The Institute of Education evaluated the ECF pilot programmes and led the early roll-out of the ECF in the north of England. It is an accredited provider for the DfE’s national roll-out in 2021.

What topics will you cover?

- Introducing perspectives on teacher expertise

- Exploring the content and purpose of the Early Career Framework

- Approaches to supporting new teacher learning and development

- Planning for smooth implementation of the Early Career Framework

- Getting the most from mentoring within the Early Career Framework

Learning on this course

You can take this self-guided course and learn at your own pace. On every step of the course you can meet other learners, share your ideas and join in with active discussions in the comments.

What will you achieve?

By the end of the course, you‘ll be able to...

- Discuss different ways that we can understand teacher expertise and learning

- Reflect on your personal understandings of teacher expertise and learning

- Explain how the Early Career Framework is intended to support ECTs' development

- Describe a range of learning activities that can be used to support ECTs’ learning, including in relation to the Early Career Framework

- Identify the steps needed in your school or setting to support smooth implementation of the Early Career Framework, and your role in this

- Justify your chosen approach to mentoring within the Early Career Framework and how this will foster ECTs’ learning

Who is the course for?

This course is is relevant to those working in education across subjects and phases from early years to sixth form, and in mainstream and special education provision.

It is aimed at anyone involved in meeting the requirements of the ECF in England from 2021, including:

- School leadership, particularly those involved in teacher development.

- Experienced teachers involved in teacher mentoring.

- Early career teachers.