Register early career teachers service: changes for schools

The launch of the register early career teachers service means a number of changes for schools.

This page describes these changes.

Schools will need to use DfE Sign-in to approve and manage access to the service. Schools need to nominate a DfE Sign-in approver to manage these activities. Typically, this would be a headteacher or induction tutor.

All users of the service will need a DfE sign-in account and approved access.

Multiple users can have access to the service

As part of using DfE Sign-in, multiple people working for a school can now get access to the service. Previously, only one person could be nominated as the school induction tutor and have access the service.

Telling DfE about the school induction tutor

As part of the change to the DfE Sign in, we now ask schools to tell us their induction tutor. Schools do this:

when they first sign in after the opening of a new registration period
any other time within the service

No longer a requirement to provide ECT or mentor names when registering

When a school registers an ECT or mentor, they only need to provide the:

teacher reference number (TRN)
date of birth

They no longer need to provide a name.

If the TRN and date of birth are correct, the service will display the name for the user to confirm.

If they’re incorrect, we ask for the national insurance number. If this is incorrect or not provided, ECT or mentor registration cannot be completed.

If the name is wrong, the school can correct it. However, they must not do this to name a different person. Schools must only correct spelling or update legal name changes.

This will be monitored after release of the service.

New questions we ask when registering ECTs

We ask schools some additional questions when registering ECTs.

Working pattern

We ask if the ECT is working a full or part-time pattern.

This applies to their working pattern as an ECT only. For example, if the ECT works full-time overall, but only part-time as an ECT, they should be recorded as part-time.

ECT start date

We ask when the person started at the school as an ECT, not when they started before becoming an ECT. For example, if they started as an unqualified or trainee teacher.

We ask for the lead provider when a school has not partnered with one before or chooses not to use existing ones

Most schools will already have a partnership with a lead provider and delivery partner that they can use to train their ECTs.

However, if they decline to use that partnership or do not have any others set up, we ask what lead provider they want to train their ECT.

This is then approved by a lead provider over the API when they submit a partnership, and shows to schools as confirmed later on the ECTs page.

The appropriate body, lead provider and delivery partner are set for each ECT, not for the cohort year

Schools can assign an appropriate body, lead provider and delivery partner for individual ECTs. Schools can change the default information during ECT registration.

Appropriate body is mandatory

Schools must tell us the ECT’s appropriate body.

Schools can make more changes without needing DfE support

Before ECTs complete their induction, schools can change the following ECT information:

Name
Email address
Mentor
Working pattern
Training programme
Lead provider

Schools can tell us when an ECT or mentor has left their school for any reason, not just when they’ve changed schools

Schools can now tell us when an ECT or mentor is leaving and not expected to return for any reason. For example, if they are leaving the teaching profession.

In the existing service, schools could only tell us when an ECT or mentor was leaving to move to another school.

Mentor training eligibility

When registering a mentor, we tell schools if the mentor is eligible for mentor training. We also tell them we’ll pass the mentor details on to their assigned ECT’s lead provider. They can change it to another lead provider if needed.