The Education and Training Foundation (ETF)’s self-assessment tool – which helps teachers and trainers assess their values, knowledge, and skills against the sector’s Professional Standards for Teachers and Trainers – has now been used over 10,000 times since the tool’s launch in June 2022.
The self-assessment tool supports teachers on their professional development journeys, helping to identify which aspects of their practice they may need to develop to work towards the twenty aspirational Professional Standards. The Standards, updated in 2022, continue to be used across the Further Education (FE) and skills sector to support effective teaching practice, with some organisations having formally embedded them into annual appraisal and observation processes.
Just under half of the self-assessments completed to date were by members of the Society for Education and Training (SET), including more than 2,000 individuals completing their Professional Formation enroute to achieving Qualified Teacher Learning and Skills (QTLS) status, and a further 152 people who completed a self-assessment as part of their Advanced Teacher Status (ATS) portfolio.
In addition to the self-assessment tool, further resources are available to support effective use of the Professional Standards to enable professional development. Teaching staff can access ETF’s CPD mapping tool, which maps professional development opportunities and resources onto each of the Professional Standards. Activity cards have also been produced by ETF and used by organisations to facilitate discussion around the Professional Standards. Last year, a series of audio interviews were released, explaining each Professional Standard in greater detail to aid understanding and application. Those interviews complement ETF’s guide to using the Professional Standards.
