What is the Early Career Teacher Entitlement?
The Early Career Teacher Entitlement (ECTE) is underpinned by the knowledge that teachers are the foundation of the education system.
There are no great schools without great teachers!
We know that teachers’ learning curve is steepest in their first years of teaching so they need structured support to continue to develop their teacher expertise. The Early Career Teachers’ Entitlement underpins an entitlement to a fully-funded, two-year package of structured training and support for early career teachers linked to the best available research evidence.
This DfE-funded course is for early career teachers (ECTs).
It is a two-year, mandatory induction programme that is designed to help early career teachers develop the expertise required to be an effective teacher throughout their career.
The ECTP also equips experienced teachers to effectively mentor ECTs, building valuable pastoral and professional development skills.
- Improve wellbeing and job satisfaction of your ECT teachers
- Evidence-informed curriculum
- Retain your teachers at the start of their careers
- Bitesize, ‘little and often’ delivery
Our Early Career Training programme, delivered in with DfE accredited provider Ambition Institute, is designed to help early career teachers (ECTs) and their mentors to develop the skills and knowledge required to be successful in their roles.
> Length: Two years
> Delivery: Blended learning that includes ‘little and often’ online and face to face learning.
> Cost: DfE funded
> Curriculum: Carefully sequenced and evidence informed.
Through the ECT programme, your early career teachers will develop their understanding of evidence-informed practice through high-quality training materials based on the best available research.
Each term, ECTs will work across modules that cover behaviour, instruction, curriculum and assessment and professional practice. They will also develop understanding of how pupils learn.
In your ECTs’ first year, they will benefit from instructional coaching sessions with their mentor every week, with a fortnightly coaching schedule in year two.
This programme follows the Department for Education’s Initial Teacher Training and Early Career Framework
The new framework was introduced in September 2025 and forms the basis of what all early career teachers must know and be able to do.
Our ECT programme is underpinned by four core areas covering behaviour, instruction, curriculum and assessment, and professional practice.
Across all these modules, participants will also develop an understanding of how pupils learn.
Behaviour
Your ECTs will learn how to:
- Create a positive classroom culture
- Establish and maintain clear expectations and routines
- Respond to disruption and restore relationships with pupils
- Support pupils to steer their emotions and interactions with others
- Foster positive and healthy attitudes to challenging tasks
- Support pupils to monitor and direct their own learning
- Promote a culture that embraces error as a learning opportunity
Instruction
Your ECTs will learn how to:
- Identify, activate and build on pupils’ prior knowledge
- Use explanations to communicate new information
- Use models illustrate new ideas and processes
- Design effective independent practice tasks
- Design, use and remove scaffolds over time
- Structure retrieval to support long-term recall
- Increase challenge to deepen pupil thinking
Curriculum and Assessment
Your ECTs will learn how to:
- Collaborate with others to identify curriculum purpose
- Identify and sequence knowledge across lessons
- Understand core approaches and debates across subjects
- Anticipate, identify and address gaps and misconceptions
- Use formative assessment to draw conclusions about pupils’ understanding
- Design high-quality feedback to help pupils improve
- Support pupils to think critically about key ideas
- Create an inclusive classroom environment
- Respond to individual pupils’ needs
- Improve pupils’ literacy across subjects
Professional Practice
Your ECTs will learn how to:
- Identify and engage with high-quality research
- Increasingly contribute to the wider school culture
- Manage workload when taking on additional responsibilities
- Use a structured process to make adaptations to practice
Our Early Career Training programme is designed so early career teachers can engage in live, facilitated sessions alongside modules they complete through our online platform.
Over two years, our ECTP includes:
- Three full day conferences
- 35 online modules with a recommended frequency of one per fortnight.
- Six one-hour clinics (facilitated sessions).
- Weekly coaching in year one and fortnightly coaching in year two
The content is delivered through blended learning. This includes a mix of real-time, interactive online sessions and self-guided modules.
Each module includes videos, reflection questions and diagnostic checks that help them engage with the latest research and ideas for practical classroom implementation, all delivered in a manageable and accessible way.
ECTs benefit from regular instructional coaching sessions from an ECT mentor, that is designed to support early career teachers to apply insights from the study materials into their classroom practice.
ECTs also have optional pastoral coaching, which aims to support workload, wellbeing and managing school life as needed.
Our programme includes chances for ECTs to network with other teachers regionally, especially at in-person events.
1. Provide a ‘suitable post for induction’ (Read more here).
2. Appoint an Appropriate Body – you can read more about our Appropriate Body Service here.
3. Appoint an Induction Tutor (a teacher/school leader who holds QTS).
4. Appoint a designated Mentor (a teacher/school leader who holds QTS).
5. Use the funding provided to enable the mentor to access our training and meet regularly with their ECT.
6. Use the funding provided to ensure the ECT has a reduced timetable (10% in Year 1 and 5% in Year 2).
We have been delighted by the engagement and positive feedback of our Early Career Teachers (ECTs) and Mentors for the programme, for Ambition’s materials and on the quality of our Visiting Fellow’s facilitation.
In the most recent DfE satisfactions survey, Pathfinder TSH received an overall satisfaction figure of 95%. We also have 95% attendance at our facilitated conferences and clinics.
ECTs tell us:
- They value the opportunities to network with others in conferences and through break out rooms.
- They are building on the CCF with opportunities to apply their learning in practice.
- Our sessions are informative and well structured.
Mentors tell us:
- Mentoring is having a positive impact on their own classroom practice and increased confidence when analysing and discussing teaching.
- They find the evidence based training very positive and enjoy the opportunities to network with others.
Registering your ECT with us
From the 28th April 2026, schools should register their ECTs, Mentors and Induction Tutors using the Register Early Career Teachers website which can be accessed using your DfE sign in. Please remember the DfE preference is for you to choose the Full Induction Programme through an approved Lead Provider (like us).
Please also remember to register your ECTs with an Appropriate Body – this is a statutory requirement; failure to do so prevents your ECT from starting their formal induction period. You can use Pathfinder Teaching School Hub for both your Early Career Training Programme and your Appropriate Body services.
Please use the following links to register ECTs for this academic year (2025-2026) with Pathfinder as your Delivery Partner and/or AB. Registrations for the 2026-2027 academic year open on Monday 15th June.
For any other queries, please contact the Teaching School Hub directly.
“We are very proud to be a highly achieving delivery partner of Ambition’s Outstanding Early Career Teachers’ Programme. Over the last three years we have supported hundreds of teachers and their mentors to develop their practice and it has been wonderful to hear so many success stories. I look forward to continuing to collaborate with many more fantastic school leaders, ECTs and their mentors through this enriching programme.”
Catherine Matthewman, Pathfinder ECF Lead