Ambition Institute launches maths pilot for Early Career Teachers

Ambition Institute is piloting an innovative project to support 100 new maths teachers with a bespoke training plan based on the Early Career Framework.

From September, a specialist cohort of the existing Early Career Teacher programme will be designed and delivered to 100 maths teachers working with the David Ross Education Trust.

Last September, the Early Career Framework (ECF) was implemented at national scale to provide support for every new teacher in England’s schools. ECF is an important and ambitious reform to teachers’ development and Ambition Institute has been a lead provider for the programme, so far delivering training and support to around 19,000 new teachers and their mentors.

Feedback is positive from early career teachers and their mentors. Many teachers are beginning to feel the impact of a rich, carefully sequenced curriculum combined with weekly, incremental coaching. There are clearly time pressures facing schools but overall, mentors on the Ambition programme are still finding time for regular mentoring.

We’ve also been considering the extent to which the ECF curriculum should be tailored to subject and phase. As a result of this, we’re investing in further training for mentors to support them to adapt the programme around their specific context, including early years and specialist provision.

We are also developing some more exemplification material in specific subjects and specialist areas.

The new pilot has been developed in response to feedback from teachers and school leaders and also builds on feedback from the early roll-out and pilot programmes, of which Ambition institute was a lead provider.

Schools across the country are finding it increasingly difficult to recruit and train maths teachers, with more leaving the profession in the first five years than in any other core subject. We want to test our theory that a specialist maths version of our successful ECF programme will support more teachers to stay in the profession.

Kat Howard. Teaching School Hub Director, DRET Teaching School Hub, said: “The ECF Maths pilot will give Maths Early Career Teachers and their schools the opportunity to benefit from high quality, subject-specific professional development as part of their robust induction to the profession.

“The pilot will provide both DRET Teaching School Hub, Ambition Institute and the wider sector with a body of data that can then inform how subject-specific ECT induction might look in the future. It is a truly exciting project that aims to ensure we support ECTs at this pivotal stage of their teaching career."

Visit the programme page to learn more and register interest here.