The Initial Teacher Training and Early Career Framework: Great Expectations

Following on from the seminal book The Early Career Framework: Origins, Outcomes and Opportunities (2022) edited by Tanya Ovenden-Hope, this new book written by Tanya Ovenden-Hope and Holly Kirkpatrick explores the expectations set by the Teacher Recruitment and Retention Strategy (2019) and insights into the experiences of those closest to the ECF. Ovenden-Hope and Kirkpatrick examine the 'golden thread' of teacher training and professional development since 2019, focusing on the lived experiences of ECTs and mentors in Year Two of the ECF, and offering provocations to understand the successes and failures that led to a revised framework of training and development with the ITTECF. ECT attrition remains high in England with one quarter leaving teaching within three years. As a strategy for teacher recruitment and the retention, it will be interesting to see if the ITTECF does better than its predecessor frameworks.

Professor (Dr) Tanya Ovenden-Hope PFHEA FCCT FSET is Professor of Education and Dean of Place and Social Purpose at Plymouth Marjon University, UK. Tanya is also a Visiting Professor at Canterbury Christ Church University, an elected Council Member of the British Educational Research Association (BERA), elected Board Member of the International Council for the Education of Teachers (ICET) and invited Advisory Board Member for the Paul Hamlyn Foundation Teacher Development Fund. With over three decades of cross-sector experience in Education (schools, colleges and universities) as a teacher, teacher educator and leader, she holds a number of invited voluntary roles for Education organisations, charities and trusts, ranging from trustee to research advisory board member.


The author of numerous papers, reports, articles and books, Tanya's research focuses on educational inequity, with particular attention on the relationship between place, school context and teacher recruitment and retention. Her research findings on coastal schools, rural schools and small schools, and subsequent conceptualisation of Education Isolation, have been used to re-frame thinking (internationally) on place-based inequities experienced by some schools, and to create interventions to level up opportunities for these schools.