By Mark Dawes (Sept 2021)
The Early Career Framework (ECF) provides considerable detail about the things Early-Career Teachers (ECTs) should do as part of their induction to the profession, during the two years after they have qualified as teachers.
It is a generic document, for primary and secondary teachers of all subjects. When a group of teachers from the Cambridge Maths Hub discussed the framework, we were struck by how many of the statements reminded us of some of the key tenets of Teaching for Mastery, as it is presented by the NCETM and promoted (through work groups and the training of mastery leads) by the Maths Hubs.
A small working group created two documents: one for primary and the other for secondary, to provide connections between mastery materials/concepts and the ECF. The idea is for Early-Career Teachers to be able to use this document to provide support and suggestions from a mathematics perspective.
The two columns from the ECF have been included. The second of these columns consists of ‘Learn how to …’ statements that are intended to be worked on in the classroom. We have highlighted the statements we think are closely related to the work of the Maths Hubs. The third column is new and provides links to materials that explain the connections between those highlighted ECF statements and Teaching for Mastery. The links are often to the NCETM and their mastery webpages, to other Hubs that have mastery materials or to websites that help to exemplify the connections.
We have deliberately provided starting points rather than trying to be comprehensive, recognising we would otherwise risk creating a document that would be vast, unwieldy and impractical. The links we have provided will often contain other links that could be followed up.
This document could be dipped into (by ECTs and their mentors) if there is a particular area of maths teaching that will form the focus for some developmental work. Or it could be used in full when each standard is focused on during the two years of induction.
We are keen to receive feedback and further ideas. Please do respond to this blog.
We would also be interested to hear from more experienced teachers who make use of these documents. We wondered whether they might be a way for experienced teachers who know about Teaching for Mastery to find out more about the ECT. Alternatively, they could be a way for experienced teachers of mathematics who have not yet explored Teaching for Mastery to dip their toes into the materials that are available.
Both documents can be downloaded from our new Early Career Framework page.
The group that worked on these documents consisted of Katie Crozier, Chris Clayton, Vicky Osborne and Mark Dawes. Particular thanks are due to Katie and Vicky for their expertise and the time they devoted to this project.
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