Research and analysis

Independent review of teachers’ professional development in schools: phase 2 findings

Updated 24 May 2024

Applies to England

Executive summary

Teachers play a vital role in pupils’ learning and development. High-quality professional development that improves teachers’ knowledge, practice and confidence can have a positive impact on pupils’ outcomes.^{[footnote 1]} Teachers also feel more satisfied in their roles and are more likely to stay in their jobs when they regularly access high-quality training.^{[footnote 2]} Given current recruitment and retention issues and the short- and long-term consequences of the COVID-19 pandemic, it is more important than ever that teachers have access to high-quality professional development.

In 2021, the Department for Education (DfE) commissioned Ofsted to carry out an independent review of teachers’ professional development.^{[footnote 3]} The review was designed to look at the quality of the training and development opportunities that teachers and leaders have recently received. An additional aim was to contribute further evidence on how the ‘golden thread’ of government reforms to teacher development between 2019 and 2021 was being implemented in schools. These reforms include the new early career framework (ECF) and the updated range of national professional qualifications (NPQs). This report is the second of 2: the findings from the first phase of our research were published in May 2023.^{[footnote 4]}

Our phase 1 review found that, generally, early career teachers (ECTs) and staff studying for an NPQ were very positive about their recent professional development experiences. Despite some initial teething problems, both of these aspects of the golden thread were welcomed by the sector and school leaders supported them.

However, we also noted that several barriers were preventing more experienced teachers (excluding those enrolled on an NPQ) from receiving sufficient development opportunities. This was leaving many of them unimpressed with the quality of the recent training and development provided by their school. Indeed, while schools were typically prioritising curriculum training and development, it was not always clear whether this training was relevant or having the desired impact on classroom practice.

For this second phase of the review, as in the first, we took a mixed-methods approach. We drew evidence from:

• a large-scale, representative YouGov survey of 1,825 teachers and school leaders

• interview data from 43 research visits to primary, secondary and special schools carried out by His Majesty’s Inspectors (HMI)

• a longitudinal cohort study of 40 teachers over the course of a year, carried out by the Institute for Employment Studies (IES)

This phase of our study has found that, as in our phase 1 findings, ECTs and those studying for an NPQ were generally more positive about the quality of their training and development opportunities than the majority of teachers who had not been on either programme. School leaders also tended to be very positive about the opportunities available to them.

By contrast, too many experienced and part-time teachers said they were still not getting a high-quality teacher development offer. We found that less than half of the teachers surveyed suggested they were receiving a high-quality and relevant programme of teacher development. In several schools, the teacher development offer was piecemeal and not strategically planned to feed into school improvement or teachers’ development priorities. This suggests that more could be done to ensure that the golden thread of teacher development is accessible to all groups of teachers, at all stages in their careers.

Barriers to accessing high-quality teacher development are a long-term issue and not just a consequence of COVID-19. Our data shows that, while the direct effect of the pandemic has significantly reduced, other barriers identified in our previous report have persisted, such as workload pressures and the costs of providing cover for teachers to attend training. These continue to prevent some teachers from accessing effective training and development opportunities.

Around half the schools we visited focused on more short-term ‘crisis management’ forms of teacher development. These included responding to issues related to students’ mental health, well-being, behaviour and attendance. While most schools offered training on curriculum and pedagogy, this sometimes had a narrow focus, was time limited and rarely provided opportunities for staff to put their new knowledge into practice. In a few schools, we again found evidence that teachers had received curriculum training that focused on preparing for inspection.

The most effective schools used innovative ways of providing all staff with high-quality teacher development. These schools had invested in long-term strategic planning, which meant that they were providing staff with a coherent programme of development. This allowed them to provide teachers with a menu of development opportunities, both formal and informal, which was balanced between building pedagogical and subject knowledge. Teachers told us that this was building their confidence and helping them to be responsive to emerging needs in the school in the short term.

There is no ‘one size fits all’ solution for teacher development. In schools with a strong teacher development offer, leaders provided staff with a variety of opportunities, both internally delivered and externally sourced. In doing so, they took account of their wider school context and staff’s individual goals. These schools had formal systems in place for staff to undertake training, as well as informal mechanisms for them to learn from each other on the job.

The ECF-based training is generally being implemented successfully, though some minor teething problems remain. Typically, ECTs indicated that the training they were receiving was effective and they could identify the impact it was having on their classroom practice. However, criticisms from a small minority of ECTs and their mentors have persisted since we published our previous report. These concern the flexibility and relevance of the ECF-based training and some logistical aspects of accessing content from online platforms.

High-quality mentoring and investment from school and multi-academy trust (MAT) leaders were essential in ECTs’ development journeys. ECTs were confident that this was helping them to understand content of the ECF and the evidence underpinning it, and to improve their teaching. It broadened their understanding of pedagogy and behaviour management and how to apply them. It also helped them to develop the professional behaviours that they had learned during their ITE programme.

NPQs are highly valued by those who undertake them. They were largely seen as relevant, high quality and tailored well to teachers’ needs. The most effective schools used the learning from the NPQs more widely as a tool to improve staff retention and inform whole-school improvements. Teachers and leaders valued the new wider range of NPQs available. Leaders typically mentioned that they were keen for the funding to continue so that more staff can study for NPQs in future.

Due to the increased time pressures of statutory teacher development, offering high-quality training opportunities is a greater challenge for special schools. Despite this, the small number of special schools we visited were showing resilience to these pressures. They had developed innovative ways of managing their teacher development offers and using the wealth of internal expertise and external practice networks to ensure their staff were able to access high-quality training.

Introduction

Teacher development can encompass a range of activities. These include formal training such as staff meetings or structured training sessions, or more informal or collaborative activities such as casual discussions and exchanging advice and good practice. Teacher development can be described using different terms, including:

• professional learning

• continuing professional development

• joint practice development

• in-service training (INSET)

The features of high-quality teacher development

The educational research literature has established how important high-quality teacher development is for effective teaching. In our phase 1 report, we discussed how high-quality teacher training is linked to improving pupils’ outcomes. We noted the challenges in providing such training, such as low retention rates in the sector, lack of leadership support and limited time. We also highlighted that the quality and impact of teacher training can vary widely, and that there are differing views on the main factors associated with effective teacher development. This discussion informed our understanding of the features of high-quality teacher development throughout the review.

A full synopsis of this review’s definitions of teacher development is in our phase 1 report.^{[footnote 5]}

Recent teacher development research and policy

Several studies on teachers’ professional development have been published in the period between our first and second reviews. There have also been some policy developments in the area.

The DfE published its first interim report evaluating the new NPQs in January 2023.^{[footnote 6]} Overall, NPQ participants reported that the NPQs have had a positive impact on them. They reported that they had increased their knowledge and skills and had taken on a greater level of responsibility since starting the NPQ. Additionally the September 2022 school and college panel survey (published in February 2023) showed that teachers’ and leaders’ awareness of NPQs had increased significantly since 2021, and that more leaders and teachers intended to apply for the qualifications than in 2021.^{[footnote 7]}

This was followed by the publication of wave 1 findings from the DfE’s ‘Working lives of teachers and leaders’ survey.^{[footnote 8]} This found that more than half of the teachers and leaders responding thought that their workload was unacceptable and that they did not have sufficient control over it. In addition, two thirds mentioned that the biggest barrier to accessing teacher development was a lack of time due to workload or competing priorities. A Teacher Tapp survey in October 2023 further highlighted the stress that teachers experience in their careers as a result of their workload.^{[footnote 9]} All this leaves less room for teachers to access, let alone engage with, high-quality professional development. Consequently, the government published the initial recommendations of the workload reduction taskforce in January 2024. These highlighted the need for teachers to focus on teaching rather than administrative tasks, and for schools to make better use of their INSET days to improve workload for staff.^{[footnote 10]}

In February 2024, the summary report of wave 2 of the ‘Working lives of teachers and leaders’ survey was published. Teachers and leaders reported that their working hours have increased since the first wave of the survey. Further, a higher proportion of teachers and leaders reported that their job had a negative effect on their personal life and well-being.^{[footnote 11]}

After introducing the ECF reforms in September 2021, the DfE started a review of the ECF and the initial teacher training core content framework in January 2023. This ran for a year. It updated the evidence for the frameworks and combined them to produce the initial teacher training and early career framework.^{[footnote 12]} The review had found that:

• some ECTs thought that ECF-based training repeated the content from their ITE course

• ECTs wanted more contextualisation for specific subjects and phases

• ECTs and their mentors wanted to see more ECF-based content covering special educational needs and/or disabilities (SEND)

• mentors’ workloads were too high

Induction training based on the initial teacher training and early career framework will start in 2025. The main changes to the early career teacher programme will include:

• diagnostic tools to determine ECTs’ existing knowledge, so that learning can be better tailored to them

• more flexibility so that mentors can focus on the content most relevant to the ECT

• significantly more content on adaptive teaching and supporting pupils with SEND, and include more examples relating to SEND

• a reduction in mentors’ workload, for example by reducing the length of provider-led mentor training to 1 year

In summer 2022, Ofsted published an inspection framework and handbook for inspecting ECF and NPQ lead providers.^{[footnote 13]} These inspections are designed to ensure that lead providers are delivering effective professional development and training and can improve on any areas of weakness identified. They also help to provide information to potential ECTs and NPQ participants and other stakeholders about the quality of provision being offered by these lead providers. In 2022/23, Ofsted carried out 6 full inspections of lead providers of ECF-based training, all of which were judged as either good or outstanding. Inspections of NPQ lead providers began in spring 2024.

Methods

Our review questions focused on:

• what teachers and leaders have recently received as part of their teacher development offer

• how well schools manage teacher development opportunities for staff

• teachers’ awareness of their entitlement to professional development and of recent reforms

• the perceived quality of teacher development that teachers and leaders have recently received

The full set of research questions are in our published terms of reference.^{[footnote 14]} This research follows a mixed-methods sequential explanatory design, as set out below. It covers the findings from:

• a YouGov survey with 1,825 participants

• 43 research visits carried out by HMI

• a longitudinal cohort study with 40 teachers that we commissioned from the IES

Once we had completed the quantitative YouGov survey, we carried out qualitative interviews and focus group discussions during our research visits, and the IES contributed further evidence through a longitudinal cohort study. The rationale for this approach was that the quantitative method gave us a general picture of the uptake of current professional development activities, while the qualitative methods helped us to explore more deeply the substance of professional development and teachers’ experiences of it. This enabled us to provide more broad and in-depth answers to the research questions and to triangulate findings from the 3 sources of evidence. Additionally, the findings from the longitudinal cohort study helped us to get a sense of trends in teacher development over time.

You can find a more detailed discussion of the methodology, process of analysis and limitations of the study in Annex A.

Main findings

Despite some minor improvements, too many teachers are still not getting a high-quality teacher development offer

In the first phase of our review, we reported that only around two fifths of teachers and leaders responding to the YouGov survey were satisfied with their training offer. Figure 1 identifies some small changes in respondents’ views in 2023. However, the proportion who agreed that the training they received in the last year was high quality, relevant or sufficient was still less than half.

Figure 1: Responses to the question ‘To what extent do you agree or disagree that you have frequently received professional development opportunities that are…’ (in percentages)

^{Source: YouGov
Base: 2021 n=1,953; 2023 n=1,825. Figures are rounded and may not add to 100.
Categories with a [s] represent statistically significant changes since the 2021 survey.
We have combined the ‘strongly agree’ and ‘agree’ responses and the ‘strongly disagree’ and ‘disagree’ responses to provide net agree/disagree totals, for ease of presentation.
See the data in an accessible table.}

In 2023, a new sub-question was added, which asked teachers whether they felt their training offer was arranged in a coherent programme.

Furthermore, as with phase 1, we also asked respondents about the characteristics of the training they have received that are related to effective teacher development (using definitions provided by the EEF).^{[footnote 15]} This again highlighted that less than a third of respondents to the YouGov survey felt that important elements, such as using explicit instruction or modelling a specific teaching technique, were always or often present in the recent development opportunities they had received. 

Given the importance of teacher development for pupils’ learning, it remains concerning that a considerable proportion of teachers were underwhelmed by their recent training and development opportunities. Typically, this was less of an issue for ECTs and for teachers studying for an NPQ, who were more positive that their recent teacher development had been of high quality. This suggests that there are strong benefits to coordinated professional development being made available to teachers and leaders.

Furthermore, we found that only around two fifths of teachers and leaders agreed that their professional development was arranged into a coherent programme (although this response was more positive for ECTs and those enrolled on an NPQ. It is important that training for teachers considers both short- and long-term effects on the classroom and pupils. Training should be well sequenced and a good investment of time, which is a precious resource for overstretched teachers. Research has shown that, where professional development is effective, teachers feel that their training and development across a year has allowed for focused, sustained and iterative changes to clearly defined key areas.^{[footnote 16]} For several effective leaders in the schools we visited, developing a coherent structure to their training and development offer was a priority. They were highly invested in the quality of the teacher development offer for their staff.

Barriers to accessing high-quality teacher development are a long-term issue and not just a consequence of COVID-19

Figure 2 shows that most of the barriers teachers face in accessing professional development have remained consistent since the first phase of our review. This excludes COVID-19 restrictions, which are now significantly less likely to be seen as a barrier. This suggests that common barriers – such as workload and the cost and availability of cover – are not new problems. Previous research in this area has corroborated that these were obstacles to providing high-quality teacher development even before the pandemic.^{[footnote 17]}

Figure 2: Responses to the question ‘To what extent do you agree or disagree that the following are current barriers to your participation and engagement in professional development?’ (in percentages)

^{Source: YouGov
Base: 2021 n=1,711; 2023 n=1,594
Categories with a [s] represent statistically significant changes since the 2021 survey.
The categories ‘cost of supply for teachers’ and ‘internet access for online training’ were both newly added for the 2023 survey and cannot be compared with 2021 results.
See the data in an accessible table.}

Many of the teachers we spoke to during the visits and from the cohort study told us that they were overstretched in their current roles. This links with other recent research indicating that workload and time are significant pressures that teachers face. For instance, just over half (54%) of the teachers and leaders who responded to the DfE’s ‘Working lives of teachers and leaders’ survey felt that their workload is unacceptable and that they don not have sufficient control over this.^{[footnote 18]} Additionally, other research suggests that teachers frequently work significantly more than their contracted hours, with a high proportion (almost 70%) experiencing stress and burnout.^{[footnote 19]} This can make it extremely challenging for them to find adequate time to undertake professional development, or to sufficiently follow up on and embed learning. It can also devalue the experience of professional development for teachers:

Workload is high at the moment. I spend many evenings sorting my curriculum subject when I should be planning. Professional development can sometimes be another pressure which we do not need.

(IES cohort study participant, wave 2)

[I feel] very overworked. Teachers want professional development to do their best for students. It is a vocation, not just a job, but you don’t have time to improve or develop.

(IES cohort study participant, wave 1)

Though workload is, by far, the biggest source of stress for teachers, the ‘Working lives’ survey also identified that the majority of senior leaders felt they spent too much time responding to government policy changes. Both the government and Ofsted are working to better understand how we can support teachers and leaders to alleviate their workloads and free up time for vital teaching tasks (of which engaging with high-quality professional development is one). We are doing this, in part, through our involvement in the education staff well-being charter and the workload reduction taskforce.^{[footnote 20]} Ofsted has also committed to ensuring that our vital role is carried out with professionalism, courtesy, empathy and respect. One aspect of this is to consider the impact our work has on teachers’ workload. As part of this, we are engaging directly with teachers and other stakeholders in education through the ‘Big Listen’.^{[footnote 21]}

School leaders and teachers told us that the cost and availability of supply cover were also barriers to teacher development. Due to low staffing levels, schools are increasingly having to turn to supply teachers for lesson cover to allow staff to attend training opportunities. This creates a challenge for school leaders, particularly given the rising cost of supply cover. As one school leader put it:

It’s a buyers’ market. Supply firms are charging top rates, and this means we struggle to afford any cover for teachers.

(Leader, primary school)

Several school leaders also said that, not only was supply costly, but it did not always provide the quality of cover required. Furthermore, some teachers highlighted the additional workload that attending professional development could create when it took them out of the classroom. Teachers were often required to prepare the work that the supply teacher would cover. Additionally, several teachers also referred to having to ‘mop up’ afterwards, by having to re-teach work that was taught poorly by the cover provided. A few suggested that attending development opportunities simply wasn’t ‘worth it’ on this basis:

Spending so much time having to set work for the person who’s going to take your class puts you off going on CPD externally

(Teacher, primary school)

In addition, most schools were finding it difficult to fund the development opportunities that their teachers want to engage with. Some leaders told us that the cost of training courses is becoming prohibitive for their school’s budget. This restricted the training options available, both in terms of the type of training and the number of staff who can access opportunities: 

School budget constraints have reduced the availability of meaningful CPD over the last few years into something that is barely detectable outside of compulsory INSET days where everything seems top down.

(IES cohort study participant, wave 2)

The timing of training was also problematic in certain cases. For instance, when planning teacher development opportunities, several leaders highlighted the importance of providing sufficient time to reflect on learning and to follow up with implementation activities:

When to implement is a key consideration. It can be the best CPD ever, but if it’s at a pinch point in the year, for example parents’ evening, it won’t be effective because staff don’t have time to commit.

(Leader, secondary school)

Time for doing the training is one challenge, but it’s more about time to implement and evaluate the strategies!

(Headteacher, secondary school)

Many schools focused on more short-term ‘crisis management’ forms of teacher development

The barriers encountered by teachers in accessing professional development also took up time, energy and capacity for school leaders. It meant that they were not always able to invest in and develop longer-term strategic programmes of professional development. All the leaders we spoke to during the visits were aware of their responsibility to provide teaching staff with high-quality professional development and, in the face of multiple obstacles, were doing the best they could. Furthermore, over three fifths of teachers responding to the YouGov survey felt confident that school leaders’ vision for school improvement included professional development. This suggests that leaders’ attempts were typically visible to staff.

However, the school visits also highlighted that some leaders focused on arranging short-term and ad hoc ‘crisis management’ forms of training in response to emerging issues affecting the school. The leaders we spoke to often prioritised training that would immediately tackle pressing issues their school was facing, such as safeguarding and student well-being:

We looked at priorities, which were safeguarding and making sure pupils were in a place [where] they could feel safe and learn.

(Leader, secondary school)

Of course, equipping staff with the knowledge and confidence required to deal with safeguarding issues and support pupils’ well-being is essential. However, in schools where this was the most common focus of formal teacher development, there were often adverse effects on the overall quality and coherence of the teacher development offer. Teachers in these schools said that they often received poorly designed ‘responsive’ training and development sessions, which had limited long-term benefits. Indeed, ad hoc training also heightened already existing workload pressures. As one teacher said:

Every week, they [teachers] may have CPD on a topic that is completely different, and then there are actions following the CPD every week, and they may not have had time to do those actions, and then they are hit with another topic with more actions and it all just gets added to the bottom of a very long list of actions

(IES cohort study participant wave 4)

Many other teachers echoed this sentiment. Participants noted that when teacher development is strong, it is well planned and feeds into improved practice, but when it is done badly, it ‘creeps into a workload problem’.

In the 2023 YouGov survey, we added safeguarding and pupil mental health and well-being as options to the question on content areas that professional development typically covered. This was because both these topics were mentioned frequently by participants during the school visits in the first phase of our research. Figure 3 clearly shows that training on safeguarding and pupils’ mental health and well-being was a relatively high priority for teachers in the last year.^{[footnote 22]} However, we cannot say whether the focus of training has increased in these areas, or whether respondents have different perceptions when distinguishing teacher development from other regular briefings and updates that they receive in these areas.

Figure 3: Responses to the question ‘Please think about the professional development you have received through school since January 2022. Which, if any, of the following content areas did it cover?’ (in percentages)

^{Source: YouGov
Base: All teachers (2021 n=1,953; 2023 n=1,825). Participants could respond to multiple options.
Categories with a [s] represent statistically significant changes since the 2021 survey.
The ‘safeguarding’, ‘pupil mental health and well-being’ and ‘pastoral support’ options were newly added in 2023 and cannot be compared with 2021 results.
In 2021, the question asked about professional development received since April 2021.
See the data in an accessible table.}

Furthermore, the number of responses that mention training on pupil behaviour and classroom management, and on teaching pupils with SEND, has increased significantly since the 2021 survey. In some of the schools visited, leaders focused more on these areas in part as a way of responding to wider issues of capacity in the SEND system – for example, the insufficient number of special school places available to meet the needs of rising numbers of pupils with SEND – and an increase in behaviour and attendance problems.^{[footnote 23]}

In the first phase of our review, we noted that the number of pupils identified as having SEND had increased following the pandemic, a trend that has persisted. This is putting added pressure on mainstream schools, and some schools are using inappropriate adaptations for students with behavioural needs, such as part-time timetables.^{[footnote 24]}The significant increase in training in these areas indicates that mainstream schools are attempting to keep abreast of ever-rising numbers of pupils with SEND and pupils with behavioural needs:

There are no [special school] places for pupils in the local area… The rising needs in the school meant that we needed to find PD on SEND quickly

(Leader, primary school)

Teaching pupils with SEND was a common topic of teachers’ development. It is also a topic on which teachers say that more training is needed. This suggests that the training they have received may not always be meeting their needs. For instance, teachers told us that this learning was not relevant to them, either because they already knew the content, or because it was too generic and not specialised to individual pupils’ needs or subject classes. In a couple of schools, leaders told us they did not think there was any need for further SEND training, although their teaching staff commonly held the opposite view.

In the strongest schools visited, leaders had achieved a balance between teacher development that addressed immediate, ad hoc issues and longer-term training on curriculum design and classroom practice.

Typically, these schools were using their subject experts to develop the curriculum and provide training. This included:

• school leaders providing staff with dedicated hours for joint curriculum planning activities alongside subject department colleagues

• subject experts running dedicated sessions that focused on research-informed practice

• subject experts holding ‘subject showcases’ that focused on building subject-specific knowledge and terminology, subject-specific curriculum progression, metacognition and pedagogy relating to the curriculum subject

• trust-level curriculum development INSET days, which were valued by staff and involved subject teachers collaborating and sharing knowledge across subject departments within the trust

In one school, subject development time focused on questions such as, ‘How can we make chemistry teaching effective when it has to be delivered by a non-specialist?’ In this way, leaders were building resilience into their development offer by addressing issues of recruitment and qualified supply cover. On top of this, they also provided more in-depth, subject-specific training to strengthen the curriculum and teaching on a longer-term basis. Interestingly, development opportunities related to pupil assessment were mentioned less frequently during the research visits and the cohort study.

However, we still saw evidence of poor-quality curriculum training. In our first phase, we noted that some schools were unsure about what curriculum training should entail and, as such, focused primarily on preparing for inspection. During our research visits for the second phase, we saw evidence of this still happening in a small minority of schools. As we highlighted in the first phase of our review, preparing for inspection, including buying in ‘Mocksted’ training, does not improve teachers’ curriculum knowledge or pedagogical practice. This, therefore, is training that has limited impact on pupils’ outcomes.

The most effective schools used innovative ways of providing staff with high-quality teacher development

Rather than seeing lack of time and resources as a reason for not providing staff with a high-quality programme of teacher development, some of the schools visited had thought of ways to overcome these challenges. For example, they made room for forward planning, increasing the flexibility of the development offer through diversifying delivery formats and methods, and incorporating networking and partnership working into their offer.

Forward planning

Leaders of the most effective schools were aware that taking a long-term view when planning teacher development opportunities involved numerous considerations:

We want high-quality activity, but it’s not going to be available to us if we don’t plan early and strategically. We want the right facilitator – that means we have to know who we want and book a year in advance, or all the higher-quality training will be fully booked. Your strategic planning has to be strong if you’re wanting to find the right practitioner to deliver [training].

(Leader, primary school)

For it to be high quality, you have to know what the impact is going to be before you’ve even started. It’s about planning that in advance.

 (Leader, secondary school)

By taking a wider view of the development calendar, these leaders could be more proactive in getting access to the right training, at the right time, for their staff. They also considered ‘pinch points’ in the academic year, such as parents’ evenings, so that staff could fully engage with the opportunities available.

Additionally, these leaders also took the time to reflect on the factors that make training effective. They tended to be research-informed and understood the importance of building in sufficient time for staff to reflect on and embed learning. They also ensured that teachers only had a limited number of training priorities scheduled concurrently.^{[footnote 25]} As such, staff were not then at risk of suffering cognitive overload. They had a better opportunity to put what they had learned into action. As one school leader put it:

You can only focus on so many things at once, otherwise the impact is diminished.

(Senior leader, secondary school)

This strategy also helped some leaders to quality-assure any external teacher development well in advance. This meant they could be more confident that they had invested in the right programme for staff.

Increasing flexibility

We also saw several examples of school leaders increasing the flexibility of their professional development offer in different ways, often with a focus on improving access for certain groups of staff who might otherwise miss out on training opportunities. For example, one school operated a rotating system of staff professional development meetings to allow part-time teachers to attend. The day on which the school’s development-focus staff meeting took place changed every half term.

Other schools were building flexibility by providing training content in hybrid, asynchronous and online formats.^{[footnote 26]} For some, this was one of the few residual benefits of the pandemic. For example, it enabled staff with irregular working patterns to access learning at a time that suited them:

The webinars… are really useful. I find I can dip in and out when I have some time.

(Teacher, secondary school)

Staff particularly valued asynchronous online training, especially when they had to fit their work schedule around other commitments. It was also considered a benefit to schools in MATs that were geographically dispersed. However, as we reported in the first phase of our report, teachers still had a strong preference for face-to-face training over online training.

Networking and partnerships

Some MATs played an important role in mitigating the barriers to teacher development faced by their schools. These schools were able to draw on additional resources from the MAT, such as supply cover, to give their teachers better access to professional development opportunities. Additionally, some MATs also offered their own training and development courses, and many had networks that focused on sharing knowledge and developing teaching practice. These networks often had a remit or subject-specific focus, such as early years networks or maths hubs. One feature of this provision was the rotation between different ‘host’ schools for training sessions, which provided more staff with the option to attend MAT-wide training. Staff valued these features in supporting their career development:

As we’re all in different schools, it enables us to share ideas and learn from each other.

(Teacher, primary school)

It’s not just about professional development… It’s about making links with other teachers and expanding that network.

(Teacher, primary school)

You are able to pick up ideas from other teachers, to network with other schools. You get a lot from these opportunities.

(Teacher, primary school)

Some MAT schools also offered trust-wide mentoring, coaching and shadowing opportunities as part of their development offers, although often these opportunities appeared to be limited to those in leadership roles.

Schools that were not part of a MAT also drew on wider networks to help them navigate some of the barriers to teacher development. Several were part of teaching school hubs, which gave them access to high-quality training on a range of topics. Teachers mentioned that they found the learning on offer from these networks of high quality, as it was frequently research-based and offered teachers the opportunity to engage with other teachers. Being part of a network also allowed teachers to share ideas and good practice to be embedded as part of the development culture at the school. In schools with weaker networking arrangements, teachers had to regularly seek out and validate training courses, which created additional time pressures.

Some leaders were also drawing on other relationships, for example with their local authority. One school we visited had a reciprocally beneficial relationship in place with its local authority, through which it gave the local authority access to classrooms for its own training days in exchange for a paid-for place on a local authority training course. Another school provided training to the local authority in exchange for the local authority providing training to the school. By looking for opportunities to engage with external partners in this way, some schools were able to, as one leader put it, ‘beg and borrow’ to overcome the challenges caused by limited funding and resources.

Strategic leadership with a long-term focus allowed schools to offer staff a coherent yet responsive programme of teacher development

Recent evidence suggests that the quality of a school’s professional development can be lower when school leaders focus more on short-term goals than on long-term goals.^{[footnote 27]} Therefore, it is encouraging that we visited several schools that were taking a longer-term, strategic approach to planning teachers’ professional development. Leaders from these schools saw training as an effective way to retain teachers and develop a positive learning culture for all staff.

Leaders in the more effective schools we visited were commonly doing the following:

• empowering and motivating teachers to have autonomy over their own development – this meant teachers were engaging with development opportunities that were directly relevant to their personal career goals, alongside the programme of development provided by the school
• putting in place a clear, sequenced programme that was linked to the school or trust’s wider priorities and had the flexibility to respond to emerging needs
• allocating enough time and resources to ensure that staff could reflect and have further discussions after the training
• empowering staff to provide their own professional development, either by training other staff after attending courses alone or in small groups, or by training colleagues on an existing area of expertise, such as a degree subject
• being highly visible in school and having regular contact time with teachers, including to discuss teachers’ career goals – this meant that leaders were aware of staff’s development goals and could support them in pursuing these
• giving members of the senior leadership team oversight and responsibility for the professional development of all staff – in several (particularly larger) schools and MATs, senior members of staff were responsible for different areas of teachers’ development, such as an ECT lead, an NPQ lead and a departmental CPD lead
• monitoring the quality of training, by vetting external courses and checking the training being provided by internal staff – leaders had a clear idea of the knowledge and skills they wanted training to impart to teachers and what the impact would be in the classroom, and had procedures in place to assess these elements

In these effective schools, leaders had deliberately created a supportive environment for teachers to feel ambitious and capable. Leaders’ hands-on involvement in teachers’ development activities meant that they could use individual staff’s learning to benefit the wider school. In many of these schools, staff who had undertaken additional training courses were then using their learning to upskill their colleagues.

These leaders also tended to view their training and development offer as a way to counter the recruitment and retention challenges in the profession. By successfully mobilising their staff around a strategic vision – which research has shown to be a strong predictor of teacher retention^{[footnote 28]} – leaders were creating communities of engaged and proactive staff. Offering high-quality teacher development was a priority for them to ensure the future success of the school. These leaders felt that it benefited the pupils and improved recruitment and retention rates. They often highlighted the importance of teachers feeling valued in their careers. They used the development offer to help create this feeling in their staff. A few leaders across different school types told us that they were growing their own talent, and even possible future leaders for the school:

We aim to grow our own as much as possible. It can be hard to find the right staff, so if we find someone with the right attitude then it’s best to train them up to do what we need them to do.

(Leader, special school)

Teachers in these schools confirmed that this approach was making them feel valued and was developing them effectively: 

You feel listened to, and that you are on a journey.

(Teacher, secondary school)

As a school, we are good at being internally promoted… the senior leadership team are good at looking at staff to ensure that they have different challenges. Lots of our appointments are made internally – because of the calibre of the professional development on offer.

(Teacher, secondary school)

Senior leaders are very supportive. They want us to be better… for us. The headteacher is such a big learner. There’s a real sense that [they’re] leading a learning community.

(Teacher, secondary school)

Investment from school leaders also meant that staff in these schools were aware of the opportunities available, knew that their career development was prioritised, and felt empowered to take ownership of their development journeys:

The CPD lead is very good at targeting training and putting you on it. She can sometimes see opportunities for you that you haven’t necessarily thought of yourself. It goes above and beyond your own performance management targets.

(Teacher, secondary school)

However, in the weaker schools visited, leaders used the language of ‘empowering teachers’ but did not provide adequate resources or make long-term plans. Leaders in these schools often limited their role to approving staff places on courses and coordinating supply cover. This was frustrating for some teachers: 

Much of our professional development is self-generating, so it relies on teachers to seek it out rather than someone looking and checking you’re doing it. This “self-governance” can be an issue; because of workload it can slip down the priority list

(Teacher, secondary school)

When staff were left to research and organise their own development opportunities, this reduced job satisfaction and increased stress levels. Lack of support from leaders made teachers feel that they had to consider the wider department or school when researching their own opportunities. For example, one teacher who was studying for an NPQ told us:

I feel like I’ve taken the initiative for the entire department by going on this course.

(Teacher, secondary school)

In these schools, staff were generally less aware of professional development opportunities, including the range of NPQs on offer. This meant that only the most motivated staff in these cases were accessing NPQs.

Since teachers already had a high workload and were experiencing non-teaching pressures on their time, this approach often exacerbated existing capacity issues. It meant that, often, teachers were not able to cascade learning from courses they had attended to their colleagues. As one teacher told us, ‘We disseminate when we have the time.’ These schools often had few or no procedures in place to monitor the quality of training. This meant that when teachers did cascade learning, staff sometimes took away the misconceptions built into the practice of the teacher providing the training.

In a small number of the schools visited, senior leaders were making decisions about the teacher development offer without consulting teachers. Some of the teachers who participated in the teacher cohort study pointed out that a more authoritative approach to teacher development was appropriate in certain contexts. For example, a need may emerge that requires urgent attention (like a safeguarding issue), or the school may go through a period of change, such as coming out of special measures or joining a new trust. These types of situations might require leaders to take a particularly coordinated approach to staff’s development temporarily. However, when this is the only way of providing teacher development in the school, it can be problematic. In several cases, teachers explained that they are not involved in their own learning journeys, which made them feel frustrated.  

There is no ‘one size fits all’ solution for teacher development

Schools with a strong teacher development offer gave their staff opportunities to engage with different types of professional learning. Training was delivered by both internal and external partners. It varied in the level of formality. Staff considered training programmes to be effective when leaders had a clear vision of the desired impact of training and had considered their school’s context and individual staff’s training needs. These considerations, rather than the delivery format, seemed to be more decisive factors in how successful a school’s development offer was.

Figure 4: Responses to the question ‘Who typically delivers your professional development?’ (Select all that apply)

^{Source: YouGov
Base: All teachers (n=1,825). Participants could select multiple options.
See the data in an accessible table.}

Figure 4 shows that professional development is still provided mainly in-house. Around 6 in 10 respondents identified school leaders, and half identified fellow colleagues, as typically providing their training. The reasons for this trend are likely to include the high and rising cost of supply cover and shrinking budgets. However, some school leaders mentioned that this preference was also influenced by the perceived relevance of internal training:

We’ve found that external training has often been less useful than internal/trust training, as it is built for a wide audience and not very specific to our setting.

(Leader, primary school)

We don’t bring external people in unless we believe they are going to have an impact – not just their knowledge and theory, but their understanding of how to apply it in this context.

(CPD lead, secondary school)

However, leaders also recognised the value of external training, particularly where internal expertise was not available. Though survey respondents were much less likely to report having received training from external trainers, when external training did happen, it was often highly targeted to specific needs in the school. The best leaders also quality-assured the training:

We choose people [to deliver training] based upon their approach; we vet everything beforehand to ensure it meets the needs of the school

(Leader, secondary school)

In one example, the school had commissioned external training on female genital mutilation. Other examples included inviting those with expertise on English as an additional language, or external experts on relationships, sex and health education, to provide training in school. In these cases, using external expertise enabled schools to respond more effectively to emerging needs in the school.

The teachers we spoke to also highlighted the importance of both formal and informal learning opportunities as part of their professional development. Leaders often provided opportunities for staff to engage in both types of development. Research into what constitutes high-quality teacher development also suggests that both formal and informal activities are important:^{[footnote 29]}

When I first started [in my career], I thought professional development was about going on courses. Now, I think it’s about developing your own practice by finding professional development that’s sustainable and impactful.

(IES cohort study participant, wave 1)

[Teacher development is] learning from watching others. Getting a variety of experiences is helping me to develop.

(IES cohort study participant, wave 1)

Many teachers also thought that drawing on the expertise of colleagues was one of the most valuable forms of learning they encountered during their careers:

[Training is] most effective when you can share strategies that really work. Collaboration is key.

(Teacher, primary School)

Informal professional conversations are so important in a busy school.

(Teacher, primary school)

Having professional discussions with a fellow experienced teacher [at the school] is extremely effective. [We] have been able to carry out joint observations, read case studies together, plan teaching sessions, design training sessions for other support staff in the school – all of which have been so much easier when doing it alongside another teacher.

We heard from teachers that this type of learning was particularly useful within specific communities, such as subject communities, or for those dealing with a discrete area of expertise, for example early years or SEND.

Schools also had other, more informal, processes in place to support teachers’ overall development. For example, in several schools, teachers who were struggling in a specific area, such as behaviour management, could ask for allocated time off timetable to observe colleagues. This meant that teachers could learn from each other’s practice. By providing an informal layer of professional development alongside more formal training, schools enabled their teaching staff to work collaboratively and learn from one another. This made teachers feel more empowered to provide the best possible education for their pupils.

The ECF reforms are being implemented successfully, although some minor teething problems remain

The ECF is designed to support new teachers after they complete their teacher training. The framework maps onto the teachers’ standards to ensure that teachers have the necessary skills to be effective.^{[footnote 30]} They are supported by a mentor during the 2 years of their induction and ECF-based training.

We found that many aspects of ECTs’ experiences of the ECF are positive. This is reassuring. Early career training is important for building teachers’ confidence^{[footnote 31]} and increases the likelihood that they will stay in the profession long-term.^{[footnote 32]} This is particularly important in the light of recruitment and retention issues in the sector.^{[footnote 33]} Our findings overlap with those of previous DfE evaluations of the ECF reforms.^{[footnote 34]}  ECTs we spoke to during the visits tended to state similar views to the following:

ECF training reminds me why we do what we do… getting in touch with the research – it’s a reminder that I’m still learning.

I look forward to the [ECF delivery partner] meetings… we get an email about what they’re going to cover, and also an opportunity to identify what we want them to cover. I appreciate the feedback and the ability to pick what we’ll cover.

The [ECF] conferences are useful… enjoy networking, and hearing how other people’s journeys have gone.

Overall my confidence has definitely improved.

Everything has been relevant, and I’m grateful for it.

Furthermore, the ECTs responding to the YouGov survey identified they were confident in several areas owing to their training. In particular, training in pedagogy, behaviour management and professional behaviours was seen to be benefiting them considerably, although confidence was slightly lower in terms of training on assessment, curriculum and teaching pupils with SEND.

Indeed, some of the ECTs we spoke to during our research visits told us that the most powerful parts of their ECF-based training had been the pedagogical aspects. They found these to be the most practical parts of their training, and were able to apply them immediately. They said that this training helped them to manage their classroom effectively and engage with pupils. One secondary school teacher, speaking about the ECF-based training they had received on adaptive teaching, said:

Adaptive teaching has been really helpful. Especially for the classes who are lower attaining, learning how to adapt approaches has helped me a lot.

There are 3 potential ways for schools to provide induction training to ECTs:

• a provider-led programme

• providing DfE-accredited materials internally

• designing their own induction programme for ECTs

Out of the 43 schools we visited, we observed the following split of delivery models:^{[footnote 35]}

Table 1: Delivery models of ECT training by number of schools in the sample

ECT programme	Number
Funded, provider-led programme from accredited providers	32
Own training using DfE-accredited materials and resources	5
Induction programme designed and taught by the school but based on the ECF	2
No ECTs at the school	4

Five of the schools we visited had chosen to develop their own training, using DfE-accredited materials and resources. Typically, leaders in these schools referred to the importance of ‘bespoke’ training for their ECTs. Some of these schools had strengths in certain areas. For instance, they had studied the relevant materials and adapted them for the context in which their ECTs were working. Some leaders had also established links with ITE providers and often worked within trusts to provide training to ECTs beyond their schools. These schools also often had clear mentoring structures in place. However, while the schools used the ECF as a basis for training, they tended to put much more emphasis on developing pedagogy, particularly by observing other teachers, than on theoretical learning. This meant that other important aspects of the ECF, such as curriculum and assessment, were not as well covered.

A few of the ECTs we spoke to highlighted some minor issues with the ECF training. Many of these issues have persisted since the first phase of this review. For instance, several mentioned that some elements of the ECF were not relevant to them. In some cases, this was because they thought the content repeated what they had already learned in their ITE course. However, the ECF training deliberately repeats previous learning, because revisiting key concepts is considered important for consolidating knowledge and skills. ECTs seem to have misunderstood why the content was being repeated and saw it as a weakness of the training rather than a necessary element of it.

Furthermore, a minority of ECTs we spoke to said that they felt that the generic nature of the ECF meant that it did not always apply to their subject specialism. However, the ECF is generic by design so that it can be applied across different subject areas. This suggests that some ECTs were not being given enough in-school support to help them to apply the framework content to their subjects. Indeed, in a few of the schools we visited, we identified some weaknesses in the support that leaders provided.

Additionally, some ECTs described the ECF as ‘too rigid’ and ‘inflexible’ (an opinion that was shared by their mentors):

The rigidity of the expectations for the ECT programme… having set targets and skills that ECTs have to demonstrate in their practice in each week… and moving through these at a set pace… This was a massive time sink.

(ECT mentor)

In all 5 of the special schools visited, ECTs considered the case study content from lead providers to be irrelevant. It did not meet the needs of teachers and pupils. This created additional workload for special schools on several fronts. It meant that leaders often had to invest more resources in creating bespoke training for ECT mentors. It also meant that ECTs and their mentors were spending significantly more time adapting content from the ECF to make it fit their context and needs. One leader summarised: 

Our own internal CPD is more relevant to our ECTs than what is provided locally and nationally, which is mainly focused on mainstream… The lead provider’s ECF materials are not especially SEN friendly.

The DfE’s ITTECF review noted similar areas for improvement, such as repetition and contextualisation. It also set out the actions that the DfE is taking to address this feedback. The ITTECF will be provided from September 2025.^{[footnote 36]}

The success of the ECF relies on in-school support from mentors and leaders

My mentor is consistent and proactive.

(ECT)

I feel that a lot of the ECT time is spent whipping through materials because of how fixed the framework is… It needs to be more flexible and give the mentor the decision-making power.

(ECT)

The majority of ECTs we spoke to said that their mentor was important to the success of the ECF programme, as they are a regular point of contact and support for teachers learning their profession. In the most effective schools, mentors were supporting ECTs in various ways, including:

• helping them to complete the activities in their induction programme

• providing follow-up discussions on points of interest

• supporting their learning through practice in their own classrooms

• reflecting on the research underpinning the ECF and then using their knowledge to help translate the theory of the ECF into practical training activities

In the best schools visited, mentors were also given time to meet with each other to share effective practice and to support each other through the mentoring process. Similarly, a few trusts had ‘ECT mentor’ networks in place to support ECF programmes.

However, the quality of what mentors were offering ECTs could vary. In some instances, ECTs mentioned that they did not receive the support they needed because mentors did not know enough about the framework or have relevant subject expertise. Additionally, some mentors told us that it was hard to get the ECF to fit their subject:

[The framework] does not fit as well with practical subjects – especially skills-based subjects.

In these instances, mentors and ECTs suggested that more subject-specific guidance would have been helpful. In the best schools visited, leaders were providing this and arranging regular opportunities for ECTs to engage with their subject communities in school.

Furthermore, while most of the mentors we spoke to understood the importance of their role, in a few cases, they also specified that their ECF delivery partner did not always give them all the support that they needed to do a good job. These mentors specifically highlighted that they had received little or no training in how to support their mentees or to use the ECF. A few schools were offering in-school training in addition to, or instead of, the lead provider’s training. A few mentors also continued to mention issues with accessing the training materials online. This is similar to the findings from our phase 1 report.  

In several schools visited, mentors mentioned that they were overstretched. Although schools receive funding to provide time off timetable for both ECTs and mentors, some mentors reported that they were not being given sufficient time to adequately plan for and deliver effective mentoring to their mentees. This was stressful for both parties. Often, in these cases, mentors had not received enough training, which meant that they did not properly understand the ECF. As a result, they saw their mentoring role as more of a burden or task to be completed. The learning was not joined up to daily practice or well embedded. In a few cases, school leaders were unwilling to provide protected time for this important role.

NPQs are relevant, high quality and tailored well to needs

There are currently 9 lead providers offering the reformed suite of NPQs across England. Ofsted has been carrying out full inspections of lead providers since spring 2024 to ensure that their courses are of sufficiently high quality. Of the three lead providers offering NPQs inspected so far, two were judged outstanding and one was judged good overall.

In general, staff studying for NPQs remain positive about how their course is developing their knowledge, confidence, working habits and practice. Figure 6 shows that the proportion expressing this view has increased slightly since the 2021 YouGov survey. There has been a significant increase in the proportion who said that the NPQ supports them to develop their knowledge.

Figure 5: Responses to the question ‘When thinking about your NPQ professional development so far, to what extent do you agree or disagree with the following statements?’

^{Source: YouGov
Base: All teachers currently doing an NPQ or leadership training qualification (2021 n=318; 2023 n=342)
Figures are rounded and may not add to 100.
Categories with a [s] represent statistically significant changes since the 2021 survey.
We have combined the ‘strongly agree’ with the ‘slightly agree’ and the ‘strongly disagree’ with the ‘slightly disagree’ responses to provide net agree/disagree scores for ease of presentation.
See the data in an accessible table.}

Around three quarters of YouGov respondents also indicated that they have high levels of confidence in the providers delivering the qualification. They were clear that providers were encouraging and supportive and that they had strong expertise and subject knowledge.

Furthermore, our visits to schools this year showed that NPQs were having some impact on wider school functions. For instance, the most effective schools were using the knowledge that teachers and leaders had acquired to enrich, among other things, teacher development itself. Staff often cascaded what they had learned in their NPQ programme to other colleagues. In one example, a teacher who was studying a national professional qualification for headship used their knowledge to completely redesign the school’s approach to teacher development:

We’ve gone through a wholesale change to how we approach CPD – to make it more responsive, with a dedicated hour and a half every week, and CPD activity being organised around an enquiry question.

(Leader, special school)

Leaders in other schools had assigned wider projects to those taking NPQs. This aimed to support their learning and strengthen their practice, although it is not a requirement of the NPQ. Generally, staff were asked to improve an aspect of school culture or policy, or to provide training to colleagues by sharing the knowledge they had acquired from the NPQ they were studying. In most schools that were doing this, staff were allocated additional time for this activity. In these cases, staff were happy to do this work and felt valued. In some cases, staff did have to use their own time to complete their NPQ studies, but many saw the long-term benefit of this and did not mind:

I don’t feel that being on this [NPQ] course added to my workload – it just contributed to my career.

(Teacher, Secondary school)

A by-product of NPQs is that they are perceived as helping to retain staff. Leaders in some schools valued the opportunity to place staff on NPQs in order to develop them as future leaders. This was particularly the case in schools with an ethos of retention and a ‘grow your own talent’ mentality. In several schools, leaders were actively ‘headhunting’ staff for an NPQ, which suggests a proactive and engaged approach. In most of these schools, both staff and leaders decided who would study for an NPQ, partly through informal conversations and partly through a more formal appraisal process. One school leader told us that a teacher whom they had encouraged to take an NPQ had subsequently been promoted to a headteacher role in another school within their trust.

Staff studying for an NPQ also stated that they frequently benefited from in-school systems of support. For example, some were having regular meetings with leaders to discuss their progression and learning. Some schools also offered those taking NPQs the opportunity to meet as a group to discuss their learning and their experiences of the courses.

Staff studying for NPQs did, however, mention some areas in which they felt their NPQ experience could be improved. The most common was time. Staff studying NPQs were not always given protected time to complete their studies and so, for many of them, this had the potential to become a workload issue. A core feature of a few schools with stronger development offers in place was that they ensured that staff had protected time for study. This was because the leaders of these schools valued staff development through an NPQ and made time for staff to benefit.    

Some staff suggested that it would have been helpful to have more opportunities to embed learning through direct experience – for example, through job shadowing or coaching opportunities. Similarly, some said that they would have preferred the opportunity to do more of the training in person, as this would give them the chance to bounce ideas off other teachers in a face-to-face setting. Others said that the availability of leadership focused NPQs did not align with the number of real opportunities to move into leadership roles. This was a source of frustration. Furthermore, some staff undertaking NPQs in special schools said that the content was too tailored to mainstream contexts and had limited relevance to their context. As one teacher taking the NPQ for senior leadership told us:

It is a lot of reading… Honestly, some of the reading is not that helpful… Some is beneficial, but some is not, because it is not relevant to the specific context of the school.

(Teacher, special school)

Teachers and leaders think there is a gap in the golden thread between being an ECT and moving into a leadership role

The YouGov survey found that access to high-quality, timely and relevant professional development varied according to a teacher’s role, contract type and length of tenure in the profession. Typically, ECTs, teachers studying for an NPQ and teachers already in leadership positions suggested that their development opportunities were high quality. However, part-time teachers and those with more years of experience but not in a leadership role were less likely to say that they had received a satisfactory teacher development offer.

We heard from many teachers about how access to training opportunities ‘drops off’ after the early stages of a teaching career:

I think there is less readily available professional development now… When I was [a teacher early in my career], I could go on courses at the drop of a hat.

(IES cohort study participant, wave 1)

Some did tell us that opportunities appeared to increase again when teachers moved into leadership roles:

As an ECT, you get lots of training, but this then reduces over time, potentially picking up again when you move into a leadership role.

(IES cohort study participant, wave 3)

I would say you have more opportunities for professional development when an early career teacher. Being head of department for a while, there are less opportunities – you may need to go higher up into leadership to get these opportunities.

(IES cohort study participant, wave 1)

Part-time teachers were more likely than full-time teachers to suggest that their professional development was ineffective. The YouGov survey highlighted that they were also less likely to indicate that they were receiving development opportunities in priority areas, such as curriculum, theories of learning, pedagogy and assessment. Very few reported that they were studying for an NPQ (4% compared with 14% of full-time teachers). Across our evidence, we heard from part-time teachers that:

• they had little or no time to access professional development

• they were frequently missing out on development opportunities within directed hours

• they did not feel that school leaders were prioritising their development

• the development opportunities available in their areas of interest were limited

• the professional development they had received was not meeting their individual needs

• school leaders were less likely to consider them for an NPQ

Figure 6 shows that teachers who had been in the profession for over 5 years were less likely to feel that school leaders prioritised their development. Given the many barriers and challenges that schools face in providing professional development to staff, it appears that leaders are having to make difficult decisions about which staff’s professional development should be prioritised.

Figure 6: Responses to the question ‘To what extent, if at all, do you think your professional development is currently prioritised by school leaders?’ (in percentages)

^{Source: YouGov
Base: All classroom teachers (n=1,594) – all classroom teachers with 1 to 5 years’ experience (n=203); all classroom teachers with 6 or more years’ experience (n=1,351); all teachers currently taking an NPQ (n=135); all teachers not currently taking an NPQ (n=1459).
We have combined the ‘highly prioritised’ with ‘quite well prioritised’ and the ‘not prioritised much’ with ‘not prioritised at all’ responses to provide the net score for prioritised/not prioritised scores for ease of presentation.
Figures are rounded and may not add to 100.
See the data in an accessible table.}

For special schools, more demands on time leave less time for teacher development

We know we have to do all the legal stuff, but we would also like courses that inspire us.

(Teacher, special school)

We visited 5 special schools during the second phase of the review to check whether our findings on teacher development in mainstream schools also applied to specialist settings. The evidence suggests that special schools can face unique challenges in providing professional development for their staff. However, they are also resilient to these challenges and are finding innovative ways to ensure that their staff and pupils benefit from high-quality teacher development. Given that we visited only 5 special schools, these findings should be treated with caution and are not generalisable to the wider sector.

Barriers in special schools

In England, special schools are allocated the same time for teacher development as mainstream settings. This can be a challenge for these schools, as the amount of time required for teacher development is perceived to be higher because of their pupils’ more complex needs. This often means that special school staff must take multiple training courses, often around safeguarding or medical aspects, to ensure that they can fulfil their duty of care for individual pupils. 

In all the special schools we visited, leaders and teachers told us that the increased time needed for training is a significant constraining factor in providing high-quality teacher development. Commonly, they considered that the amount of time to pursue personal career goals and areas of interest was greatly reduced. Many staff told us that they were doing training in their own time, in evenings and over weekends and holidays:

We focus on the children while we’re here, but then I use my holiday time to complete online training.

(Teacher)

There is limited professional development time available, but substantial amounts are needed to meet mandatory training requirements and specific training needs in response to the wide range of complex needs of our pupils.

(School leader)

This is compounded further by other workload issues. For example, one school highlighted that just entering the large number of safeguarding incidents on their digital system was a task that could rarely be completed within the allocated time. Staff told us that they often had to stay behind after school to complete these administrative tasks. 

For leaders, releasing staff to attend professional development opportunities was also more challenging than in mainstream schools. Although this is a barrier for all schools, the need to avoid causing disruption to pupils in a special school makes it harder to find cover for staff. Often, pupils in these schools found it difficult to adapt to a new teacher, so leaders and teachers were more reluctant to attend teacher development opportunities taking place during the school day.  

One final challenge identified was the availability of training relevant to teachers’ specific needs. The leaders we spoke to said that the amount of external training that met their needs was limited, often due to demand outweighing supply for topic areas relevant to special schools.

Opportunities in special schools

Despite the unique challenges these special schools face, they also showed resilience in their attempts to provide staff with high-quality and relevant teacher development opportunities. Leaders often drew on their internal expertise to strengthen the teacher development offer for all staff. They were also involved in strong practitioner networks to keep staff up to date with the latest learning and practical guidance. Furthermore, staff were passionate, dedicated and frequently willing to go ‘above and beyond’ to ensure that their knowledge was as up to date as possible for the benefit of the pupils they taught or supported.

The approach to teacher development was potentially more inclusive than in some mainstream schools. Notably, special schools took account of all support staff when devising their training and development offers. In this way, these schools were able to use their resources to build capacity for teacher development. A benefit of doing this was that support staff were better able to fulfil their roles. For instance, one teaching assistant made it clear how important frequent training was to them:

We wouldn’t be able to make the necessary differentiations for pupils without regular CPD.

One leader told us:

All TAs [teaching assistants] attend the same INSET and weekly curriculum staff meetings as teachers. They all have the same performance management cycle as teachers, with individual performance targets set using the TA standards and development targets based on the school’s current SDP [school development plan] focus. There is a clear TA line management structure and explicit career pathways for TAs, [which we have] established over a number of years

(School leader)

This greater understanding of not just practical techniques but also, often, the theory behind certain approaches (such as differentiation) enabled teaching assistants to provide better support to teaching staff in the classroom. They were also more confident that they could provide this support ‘live’ in a lesson.

This development also meant that teaching assistants could provide higher-quality lesson cover when teaching staff wanted to access external training courses. By using a recognised member of support staff – who understood the techniques being applied in the classroom and the reasons for them – as supply cover, special schools could avoid the potential disruption of having an unfamiliar supply teacher cover lessons. This was preferable for leaders, who suggested that supply teachers could often struggle to adapt quickly to the dynamic context of special needs classrooms.

Additionally, support staff felt more valued by being included in whole-school training opportunities. We saw several examples of support staff training for qualified teacher status. In one of the schools visited, there was a distinct development ‘pathway’ in place for support staff to train to become teachers. By making support staff feel empowered and trusting them to step into teaching roles, these special schools were inspiring future teachers – a long-term, strategic retention tool. It should be noted that, in these instances, leaders mentioned that support staff were receiving opportunities to develop their knowledge and skills, rather than being used improperly as teaching support.^{[footnote 37]}

Networks of practitioners and colleagues were also of great importance in these schools. All 5 schools were members of (often multiple) robust, geographically spread networks that shared learning and practice with colleagues working across other special schools. For instance, one of the schools in our sample had an English lead who was part of a research project that provided a supportive network to the school. By participating in the project, they not only learned valuable lessons from other practitioners involved in the study, but cascaded research-based knowledge back into the school for the benefit of other staff and pupils. Several other teachers told us how much they valued the networking opportunities:

I like the peer-to-peer meetings, which happen virtually and face to face. It’s so nice to discuss and share different experiences across your different schools, bounce ideas off each other… This is really helpful.

(Teacher)

Linked to this, leaders also highlighted examples where they used internal expertise among school staff to provide effective development opportunities. Some of the staff members we spoke to either had, or were currently training for, highly specialised qualifications, such as an undergraduate degree in autism or a master’s degree in communication. These staff members were visible within the school, often mentoring or coaching their peers informally, and school leaders drew on their expertise to feed back into the wider school community.

Teachers and leaders from across all 5 schools also told us how much they valued the specialist support they had received from speech and language therapists. Given the significant focus in these schools on communication as a key area of teacher development, these colleagues were seen as central to many special schools’ development approaches. For example, one school commissioned a speech and language therapist for a couple of days a week in school for teachers to use as needed, but leaders had requested that they train the staff so that staff could then give language support themselves and receive feedback about how to improve this. Leaders said that this made staff feel they had been ‘upskilled’, and they saw it as a positive that they were now more often able to offer language support to pupils independently.

What teachers and leaders want from their future development offers 

Overall, the teachers we spoke to want their teacher development to be more specific. Most of them mentioned the need for subject-specific training. They considered training tailored to specific phases and even within phases as vital for making teacher development effective.

The greatest perceived need across schools was SEND-specific training, and there was particular demand for more coverage of autism and speech, language and communication. Teachers commented that they would like more opportunity to discuss how to implement SEND training in specific subjects, such as in relationships, sex and health education, to teach those with SEND how to keep themselves safe. Mainstream schools preferred training that was tailored to the relevant phase rather than material designed for special schools.

Teachers also regularly specified that they want more opportunities to network face to face and to work collaboratively with colleagues, both within and outside their immediate school environment:

Going to see something in practice is the best teacher development that can be offered… See one, do one, and get the help to get through it… Some of the best teacher development has been going into another school, working with other departments and learning and troubleshooting ideas… To go and see where something is being done really well is essential.

(Teacher, secondary school)

In many of the primary and secondary schools visited, there was a sense that teacher development was stronger in subjects such as mathematics and English. Teachers would like to see better teacher development in foundation subjects such as humanities. This is a long-standing concern of school leaders, who also commented on it at the time of our curriculum research.^{[footnote 38]}

Schools are keen to sustain the NPQ, and leaders would like the current levels of funding to continue so that they can do this. Leaders see the importance of the provision and know they have ambitious staff wanting to complete NPQs. However, they fear that they may have to become more selective in who can do NPQs if restrictions are put in place, as they may not be able to maintain the time given in future.

Annex A: further details of methods

Research questions

We worked with the DfE to determine the areas of interest for our study. This covered the following research questions, which can be found in the published terms of reference:

What teachers and leaders are receiving

• Who is receiving training and professional development, what is their experience in teaching and what are their responsibilities?
• What is the content of the training and development that teachers and leaders are receiving? Does it meet the aims of the recent reforms?
• Who is involved in training or mentoring teachers, what is their experience in teaching and what are they responsible for?
• How does this vary across different schools and training routes?

Management of professional development

• Do senior leaders value and prioritise the development of teachers?
• Are school leaders effectively managing and supporting teachers to develop in their schools?
• How well do school leaders work with providers/partners to ensure that professional development is delivered effectively?
• How does this vary across different schools and training routes?

Awareness of professional development

• Are teachers and leaders aware of their entitlement to professional development?
• How knowledgeable are teachers and leaders about the concepts in the government’s new reforms?
• How does this vary across different schools and training routes?

Quality of professional development

• Is professional development of high quality?
• Is the quality of professional development improving? Are the recent reforms a factor in any noted improvements?
• What are the barriers that prevent planned professional development from being delivered effectively?
• What are the main features of effective models?
• How does this vary across different schools and training routes?

Impact of professional development

• Have improvements in professional development led to improvements in teaching and leadership in schools?
• Are more teachers and leaders becoming involved in high-quality professional development?
• Have improvements in professional development had an impact on pupils catching up with their education that was affected by the pandemic?

YouGov survey

The main aim of the online YouGov survey was to capture teachers’ and leaders’ views of the professional development training they had recently received. A secondary aim was to follow up on the baseline findings from the phase 1 report, to see how views had changed over time and to identify any important changes in the landscape. To this end, for the second phase of the survey, we added some additional questions and response options that took into account some of the findings from our phase 1 report.

YouGov managed the recruitment of participants, using its teacher volunteer respondent panel. It recruited 1,825 participants. We used the DfE’s school workforce survey for full-time teachers as the sample frame. The figures for the whole survey were weighted to be representative of all teachers in England by school type, teaching level, region, gender and age. ECTs and school leaders (for NPQ take-up) were oversampled for the purpose of the analysis. Despite this intention, the number of ECTs included in the survey (n=68) remained low in 2021 due to the numbers who were signed up in the respondent panel. Unfortunately, further attrition of this group meant that the figure for the 2023 survey was lower (n=55). Therefore, comparisons between ECTs and other groups are indicative and should not be generalised for the whole ECT population. In total, 162 teachers in the 2023 survey responded that they were currently studying for an NPQ.

The purpose of the questionnaire and its role in this review were explained to respondents, and Ofsted was named as the commissioner. YouGov piloted the questions with participants before the full survey went live, to ensure that the language was clear and that responses were providing relevant information. The questions gathered data on the following areas:

• respondents’ characteristics
• professional development opportunities, including frequency, form and content
• views on the effectiveness of professional development experiences
• attitudes towards professional development
• views on perceived barriers to professional development
• awareness of professional development reforms
• experiences of current ECF-based training
• experiences of current NPQ training

Research visits

To complement the survey findings, and provide further depth to our research, 11 HMI and 4 Ofsted Inspectors (OIs) carried out 43 research visits to maintained schools and academies during the 2023 spring, summer and autumn terms. These comprised 22 secondary schools, 16 primary schools and 5 special schools. Schools were selected using the following criteria:

• the school’s latest Ofsted overall effectiveness judgement (excluding schools judged as inadequate)
• the level of deprivation (using the ‘Income Deprivation Affecting Children Index’^{[footnote 39]})
• the ECF programme route (sourced from the DfE)

The aim was not to select a nationally representative sample, but instead to get an adequate amount of variation in the sample to help us identify common strengths and weaknesses across the schools we visited.

We were particularly interested in schools with ECTs using the different ECF programme routes. This is why we included this criterion in the sample design. This also ensured that we could identify which schools in the sample did not have ECTs, so that we could gain insights into the professional development of teachers who were not using ECF programmes. There was no available data for identifying staff on an NPQ programme, so views from this group were dependent on the schools selected having relevant participants who could contribute. Of the 43 schools we visited, 4 had no ECTs, and 5 had no members of staff studying for an NPQ.

Visiting special schools was a new element of this phase of the report. We visited special schools in order to investigate whether our findings from mainstream schools also applied in specialist settings, and to identify any barriers or strengths unique to special schools. The special schools we visited represented a diverse range of provision types, which taught pupils with differing needs profiles. One school catered for students with social, emotional and mental health needs. Two schools were for pupils with severe and profound/multiple learning difficulties, one of which also catered for complex learning difficulties. The other 2 were autism-specialist schools.

During the research visits, inspectors carried out semi-structured interviews with headteachers and other members of the senior leadership teams, professional development leads, ECTs, ECT mentors (where possible), and teachers who had provided recent in-house training for colleagues. We also held focus groups with teachers and, in a few instances, ECTs and their mentors. Most of the research visits took place over a single day. All schools that participated in the research did so voluntarily, and all participants gave informed consent.

As with the previous phase of this review, it was more challenging than usual to recruit schools to participate. This was often related to workload concerns, although occasionally COVID-19 was still an issue for the schools we invited to participate. This has some implications for selection bias; for instance, we may have recruited more schools that were particularly keen on being involved in the study.

A typical research visit involved the following activities:

• meeting with senior leadership team (lasting 15 to 30 minutes)
• interviews with senior leadership team and leaders with teacher development responsibilities (about 60 minutes)
• focus groups with teachers (about 60 minutes)
• focus groups with ECTs (about 40 minutes)
• interviews with ECT mentors and induction leads (about 40 minutes)
• focus groups with those undertaking NPQs (about 40 minutes)

In addition to collecting the primary data from the visits, we also asked inspectors to summarise the data after the visit, to aid analysis. We used a deductive thematic approach to coding the data. The coding framework was developed using concepts from the research questions in the terms of reference. We also identified new themes to explore from the first phase of the report, which were also included in the coding framework.

The sample design, while balanced to ensure that we could visit a range of settings, does not include any schools judged as inadequate at their last inspection, to enable them to manage the burden of inspection. Therefore, the sample cannot be said to be representative.

Teacher cohort study

As part of this research, we also commissioned the IES to conduct a longitudinal teacher cohort study on our behalf. The purpose of this study was to gain an in-depth understanding of how the quality of teacher professional development, and the perceived impact, vary among different teachers. We also wanted insight into the changes that may occur over time. We sought to achieve this by following a group of teachers over the course of a year.

The research questions were:

• What professional development are teachers getting?
• What is the format of what they are getting?
• What is the quality of the professional development they are getting?
• What are the barriers to and facilitators of professional development?

Our approach was to conduct 4 waves of research with the panel of teachers. Forty teachers were recruited via panel using a purposive sampling approach. To provide a range of perspectives, participants were selected in terms of age, ethnicity, gender, years of experience, level of seniority, school phase, school governance, school performance and school catchment.

For wave 1, semi-structured interviews took place online or by telephone, between October and November 2022. This helped to develop a baseline for the study. Wave 2 took place between February and March 2023, and took the form of an email consultation, featuring 7 open-text questions. Wave 3 took place between June and July 2023 and comprised another series of in-depth semi-structured interviews lasting between 45 and 60 minutes.

For wave 4, an online reflections workshop was carried out with 14 participants. There were 2 breakout-room activities in which teachers were asked to summarise their experiences across the year and to consider what they would like from the future. We also piloted some of the models we had identified through our analysis with the group and received their feedback on these. This wave was hardest to recruit for, given the time in the school year and the fact that only a single date was being offered. The remainder of the group was given the opportunity to respond to the workshop questions by email.

Annex B: data for figures

Data for figure 1: Responses to the question ‘Since January 2022, to what extent do you agree or disagree that you have frequently received the following?’ (in percentages)

Response	Relevant (2021)	Relevant (2023)	Sufficient (2021)	Sufficient (2023)	High quality (2021)	High quality (2023)	Coherent (2023)
Strongly agree/Slightly agree	44	49	43	46	42	46	41
Neither agree nor disagree	19	18	19	18	19	20	20
Slightly disagree/Strongly disagree	33	31	35	33	36	31	36
Don’t know	3	2	3	3	3	3	3

See Figure 1.

Data for figure 2: Responses to the question ‘To what extent do you agree or disagree that the following are current barriers to your participation and engagement in professional development?’ (in percentages)

Barriers	2021	2023
Workload pressures	87	85
Cost of supply for teachers	[w]	73
Availability of staff to cover my lessons	73	73
Cost to school [s]	68	73
Timetable conflicts	67	67
Lack of choice/range in PD offer	52	51
Lack of incentive to participate	41	40
Lack of support from employers/leaders	38	39
Lack of course/programme prerequisites	31	24
Travel requirements	30	34
Lack of support from mentor/coach	26	27
Internet access for online training	[w]	12
COVID restrictions [s]	59	9

^{[w] = question not asked in the 2021 survey}

See Figure 2.

Data for figure 3: Responses to the question ‘Please think about the professional development you have received through school since January 2022…Which, if any, of the following content areas did it cover? (Please select all that apply)’ (in percentages)

Themes	2021	2023
Safeguarding	[w]	62
Pupil mental health and well-being	[w]	37
Teaching students with special educational needs	33	37
Knowledge of the curriculum	36	33
Pupil behaviour and classroom management	27	30
Theories of learning	31	29
Pedagogical competency – generic	24	23
Knowledge of your subject field	24	21
Pedagogical competency in teaching your subject field	17	17
Approaches to individualised learning	15	16
Analysis and use of student assessments	18	16
Pupil assessment practices	19	15
Pastoral support	[w]	15
School leadership	14	13
Teaching cross-curricular skills	13	10

^{[w] = question not asked in the 2021 survey}

See Figure 3.

Data for figure 4: Responses to the question, ‘Who typically delivers your professional development?’ (Select all that apply)

Professional development provider	2023
Your school leaders	62
School colleagues	50
External specialised trainer (professional organisation/body)	34
External specialised trainer (private)	24
Your Multi Academy Trust (MAT)	20
Local Authority	15
Staff from other schools	11
Teaching School	4
University	3
Other Multi Academy Trust (MAT)	2
Other	2
Don’t know	2

See Figure 4.

Data for figure 5: Responses to the question, ‘When thinking specifically about your NPQ professional development so far, to what extent do you agree or disagree with the following statements?’ (in percentages)

Response	It is supporting me to develop my knowledge (2021) [s]	It is supporting me to develop my knowledge (2023) [s]	It is supporting me to build confidence for leadership (2021)	It is supporting me to build confidence for leadership (2023)	It is supporting me to develop my practice (2021)	It is supporting me to develop my practice (2023)	It is supporting me to develop my working habits (2021)	It is supporting me to develop my working habits (2023)
Strongly agree/Slightly agree	67	74	66	69	66	70	59	63
Strongly disagree/Slightly disagree	11	8	11	11	13	10	16	16
Neither agree nor disagree	16	10	16	13	15	13	18	14
Don’t know	7	7	7	7	7	7	7	7

See Figure 5.

Figure 6: Responses to the question ‘To what extent, if at all, do you think your professional development is currently prioritised by your school leaders?’ (in percentages)

Response	New teachers: 1-2 years (54)	New teachers: 3-5 years (149)	Experienced teachers: 6-10 years (320)	Experienced teachers: 11-20 years (563)	Experienced teachers: 20+ years (508)	All teachers: Currently taking NPQ (135)	All teachers: Not taking NPQ (1459)
Highly prioritised/ Quite well prioritised	71	55	52	46	49	67	49
Not prioritised much/ Not prioritised at all	26	38	43	50	48	32	47
Don’t know	3	7	5	4	4	1	5

See Figure 6.

1. ‘Evidence review: The effects of high-quality professional development on teachers and students’, Education Policy Institute, February 2020. ↩

2. N McJames, A Parnell, and A O’Shea, ‘Factors affecting teacher job satisfaction: a causal inference machine learning approach using data from TALIS 2018’, Educational Review, May 2023.
   
   ‘Evidence review: The effects of high-quality professional development on teachers and students’, Education Policy Institute, February 2020. ↩

3. ‘Terms of reference: Ofsted’s independent review of teachers’ professional development’, Ofsted, September 2021. ↩

4. ‘Independent review of teachers’ professional development in schools: phase 1 findings’, Ofsted, May 2023. ↩

5. ‘Independent review of teachers’ professional development in schools: phase 1 findings’, Ofsted, May 2023. ↩

6. ‘Emerging findings from the evaluation of national professional qualifications: interim report 1’, Department for Education, January 2023. ↩

7. ‘School and College Panel: September 2022’, IFF Research, February 2023. ↩

8. ‘Working lives of teachers and leaders – wave 1’, Department for Education, April 2023. ↩

9. ‘The emotional “tax” of teaching: is it time for teachers to do less?’, Teacher Tapp, August 2023. ↩

10. ‘Workload reduction taskforce: initial recommendations’, Department for Education, January 2024. ↩

11. ‘Working lives of teachers and leaders: wave 2 summary report’, Department for Education, February 2024. ↩

12. ‘Outcomes of the review of the initial teacher training core content framework and early career framework’, Department for Education, January 2024. ↩

13. ‘Early career framework and national professional qualification inspection framework and handbook’, Ofsted, March 2022. ↩

14. ‘Terms of reference: Ofsted’s independent review of teachers’ professional development’, Ofsted, September 2021. ↩

15. ‘Effective professional development’, Education Endowment Foundation, October 2021. ↩

16. ‘CPD quality framework’, Teacher Development Trust, 2021. ↩

17. ‘TALIS 2018 results (volume I): teachers and school leaders as lifelong learners’, the Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development teaching and learning international survey, June 2019. ↩

18. ‘Working lives of teachers and leaders – wave 2 summary report’, Department for Education, February 2024. ↩

19. ‘The emotional “tax” of teaching: is it time for teachers to do less?’, Teacher Tapp, August 2023. ↩

20. ‘Education staff wellbeing charter’, Department for Education, May 2021, updated January 2021;
    
    ‘Workload reduction taskforce: initial recommendations’, Department for Education, January 2024. ↩

21. Ofsted Big Listen, Ofsted, March 2024. ↩

22. It is worth noting that the requirement for statutory safeguarding training may be the reason for the high figures shown. ↩

23. ‘The Annual Report of His Majesty’s Chief Inspector of Education, Children’s Services and Skills 2022/23’, Ofsted, November 2023. ↩

24. ‘The Annual Report of His Majesty’s Chief Inspector of Education, Children’s Services and Skills 2022/23’, Ofsted, November 2023. ↩

25. ‘Effective professional development’, Education Endowment Foundation, October 2021. ↩

26. An asynchronous format is when content is created and uploaded in advance, and learners access it in their own time. It is not ‘live’. Examples would include pre-recorded lectures or videos. ↩

27. R Coe, ‘Why are we holding out for more professional development time (even though school leaders say they can’t manage it)?’, Evidence Based Education, July 2023; R Coe and J Scott, ‘The great teaching toolkit: evidence review’, Evidence Based Education, June 2020. ↩

28. J Jerrim, ‘The link between teacher buy-in and intentions to continue working in their current school’ in ‘British Educational Research Journal’, January 2024. ↩

29. ‘CPD quality framework’, Teacher Development Trust, 2021. ↩

30. ‘Teachers’ Standards’, Department for Education, December 2021. ↩

31. M Walker, S Straw, J Worth and H Grayson, ‘Early career CPD: exploratory research’, National Foundation for Educational Research (NFER), November 2018. ↩

32. T Ovenden-Hope, S Blandford, T Cain, and B Maxwell, ‘RETAIN early career teacher retention programme: evaluating the role of research informed continuing professional development for a high quality, sustainable 21st century teaching profession’, in Journal of Education for Teaching, September 2018. ↩

33. ‘Teacher recruitment and retention strategy’, Department for Education, January 2019. ↩

34. Institute for Employment Studies (IES) and BMG Research, ‘Evaluation of the national roll-out of the early career framework induction programmes: Interim research brief (year one)’, May 2022; Institute for Employment Studies (IES) and BMG Research, ‘Evaluation of the national roll-out of the early career framework induction programmes: Annual summary (year one)’, March 2023. ↩

35. Owing to school recruitment for this study, the split by delivery models is not representative of the national breakdown. ↩

36. ‘Outcomes of the review of the initial teacher training core content framework and early career framework’, Department for Education, January 2024. ↩

37. ‘Making best use of teaching assistants: maximise the impact of teaching assistants’, Education Endowment Foundation, October 2018. ↩

38. ‘Curriculum research: assessing intent, implementation and impact’, Ofsted, December 2018. ↩

39. See the definition of the IDACI index: DCLG Indices of Deprivation 2015: Income Deprivation Affecting Children Index (IDACI). ↩