The ITTECF: Our mutual friend?
About the session:
ECT attrition remains high in England with one quarter leaving teaching within three years.In 2023 the Department for Education (DfE) called for evidence on the success and challenges of the Early Career Framework (ECF). Following a review of the findings, the DfE announced in 2024 that the Initial Teacher Training Core Content Framework would be aligned with the ECF from September 2025 as the ITTECF. The ITTECF establishes a minimum three year training and development framework for beginning teachers. The goal of the new ITTECF is to create ‘great teachers’ that want to stay in teaching. Following on from the seminal book The Early Career Framework: Origins, Outcomes and Opportunities (2022) edited by Tanya Ovenden-Hope, Tanya is writing a new book with Holly Kirkpatrick, The Initial Teacher Training and Early Career Framework: Expectations and Experiences (2025) that will explores the expectations set by the Teacher Recruitment and Retention Strategy (2019) and insights into the experiences of those closest to the ECF. In this event Tanya and Holly will discuss the ‘golden thread’ of teacher training and professional development since 2019, using ‘lived experiences’ of Early Career Teachers in Years Two and Three, ECF mentors and induction leads and offer provocations to understand the successes and failures that led to the revised ITTECF for teacher training and development. As a strategy for teacher recruitment and the retention, time will tell if the ITTECF does better than its predecessor frameworks.
Speakers:
Tanya Ovenden-Hope
Professor (Dr) Tanya Ovenden-Hope PFHEA FCCT FSET is Professor of Education and Dean of Place and Social Purpose at Plymouth Marjon University, UK. Tanya is also a Visiting Professor at Canterbury Christ Church University, an elected Council Member of the British Educational Research Association (BERA), elected Board Member of the International Council for the Education of Teachers (ICET) and invited Advisory Board Member for the Paul Hamlyn Foundation Teacher Development Fund. With over three decades of cross-sector experience in Education (schools, colleges and universities) as a teacher, teacher educator and leader, she holds a number of invited voluntary roles for Education organisations, charities and trusts, ranging from trustee to research advisory board member.
The author of numerous papers, reports, articles and books, Tanya’s research focuses on educational inequity, with particular attention on the relationship between place, school context and teacher recruitment and retention. Her research findings on coastal schools, rural schools and small schools, and subsequent conceptualisation of Education Isolation, have been used to re-frame thinking internationally on place-based inequities experienced by some schools, and to create interventions to level up opportunities for these schools.
Holly Kirkpatrick
Holly Kirkpatrick is Head of Physical Education Teacher Training at the University of Buckingham. Her role includes training PE teachers and leading on a popular masters in sport programme. She has over 13 years of teaching experience in both the state and independent sectors as a PE teacher and Director of Sport. Holly is in the final stages of completing her educational doctorate with a focus on the Early Career Framework. Her research interests include professional development and learning and teacher recruitment and retention.
Rob Caudwell
Robert Caudwell is the co-founder of Penrose Education – the EdTech company behind the Mosaic platform. He holds an undergraduate MA in International Relations, an MA in Education and Leadership and is currently studying for an MSc in Systems Thinking in the Public Sector. He has experience designing, managing the delivery of and facilitating on various ITE, ECF and NPQ programmes – as well as leading the teacher development offer for a large Multi Academy Trust. At Penrose Education, Robert works with ITE providers to support the design, delivery and management of their teacher training and education programmes via Mosaic.
Robert is a Fellow of the Chartered College of Teaching and the Royal Society for the Encouragement of Arts, Manufactures and Commerce.
