Professional Standards for Teachers in England

The national standards set out the professional knowledge, understanding, skills and attributes necessary to enter the profession or for those in leadership roles in schools to carry out key tasks effectively.

Professional Attributes

Relationships with Children & Young People

1. Have high expectations of children and young people including a commitment to ensuring that they can achieve their full educational potential and to establishing fair, respectful, trusting, supportive and constructive relationships with them.
2. Demonstrate the positive values, attitudes and behaviour they expect from children and young people.

Frameworks

3.  
   1. Be aware of the professional duties of teachers and the statutory framework within which they work.
   2. Be aware of the policies and practices of the workplace and share in collective responsibility for their implementation.

Excellent teachers should: Be prepared to take a leading role in developing workplace policies and practice and in promoting collective responsibility for implementation

Communicating and working with others

4. Communicate effectively with children, young people, colleagues, parents and carers.
5. Recognise and respect the contribution that colleagues, parents and carers can make to the development and well-being of children and young people and to raising their levels of attainment.
6. Have a commitment to collaboration and co-operative working.

Personal professional development

7.  
   1. Reflect on and improve their practice, and take responsibility for identifying and meeting their developing professional needs
   2. Identify priorities for their early professional development in the context of induction
8. Have a creative and constructively critical approach towards innovation, being prepared to adapt their practice where benefits and improvements are identified.
9. Act upon advice and feedback and be open to coaching and mentoring.

Excellent teachers should: Research and evaluation innovative curricular practices and draw on research outcomes and other sources of external evidence to inform their own practice and that of colleagues

Professional Knowledge & Understanding

Teaching and Learning

10. Have a knowledge and understanding of a range of teaching, learning and behaviour management strategies and know how to use and adapt them, including how to personalise learning and provide opportunities for all learners to achieve their potential.

Excellent teachers should: Have a critical understanding of the most effective teaching, learning and behaviour management strategies, and including how to select and use approaches that personalise learning to provide opportunities for all learners to achieve their potential

Assessment and Monitoring

11. Know the assessment requirements and arrangements for the subjects/curriculum areas they are trained to teach, including those relating to public examinations and qualifications.
12. Know a range of approaches to assessment, including the importance of formative assessment.
13. Know how to use local and national statistical information to evaluate the effectiveness of their teaching, to monitor the progress of those they teach and to raise levels of attainment.

Excellent teachers should: Know how to improve the effectiveness of assessment in the workplace, including how to analyse statistical information to evaluate the effectiveness of teaching and learning across the school

Subjects & Curriculum

14. Have a secure knowledge and understanding of their subjects/curriculum areas and related pedagogy to enable them to teach effectively across the age and ability range for which they are trained.
15. Know and understand the relevant statutory and non-statutory curricula and frameworks, including those provided through the National Strategies, for their subjects/curriculum areas, and other relevant initiatives applicable to the age and ability range for which they are trained.

Excellent teachers should: Have an extensive and deep knowledge and understanding of their subjects/curriculum areas and related pedagogy gained for example through involvement in wider professional networks associated with their subjects/curriculum areas.

Literacy, Numeracy & ICT

16. Have passed the professional skills tests in numeracy, literacy and information and communications technology (ICT).
17. Know how to use skills in literacy, numeracy and ICT to support their teaching and wider professional activities.

Achievement & Diversity

18. Understand how children and young people develop and that the progress and well-being of learners are affected by a range of developmental, social, religious, ethnic, cultural and linguistic influences.
19. Know how to make effective personalised provision for those they teach, including those for whom English is an additional language or who have special educational needs or disabilities, and how to take practical account of diversity and promote equality and inclusion in their teaching.
20. Know and understand the roles of colleagues with specific responsibilities, including those with responsibility for learners with special educational needs and disabilities and other individual learning needs.

Excellent teachers should: Have an extensive knowledge on matters concerning equality, inclusion and diversity in teaching.

Health & Well-being

21.  
    1. Be aware of the current legal requirements, national policies and guidance on the safeguarding and promotion of the well-being of children and young people.
    2. Know how to identify and support children and young people whose progress, development or well-being is affected by changes or difficulties in their personal circumstances, and when to refer them to colleagues for specialist support.

Professional Skills

Planning

22. Plan for progression across the age and ability range for which they are trained, designing effective learning sequences within lessons and across series of lessons and demonstrating secure subject/curriculum knowledge.
23. Design opportunities for learners to develop their literacy, numeracy and ICT skills.
24. Plan homework or other out-of-class work to sustain learners' progress and to extend and consolidate their learning.

Excellent teachers should: Take a lead in planning collaboratively with colleagues in order to promote effective practice. They identify and explore links within and between subjects/curriculum areas in their planning

Teaching

25. Teach lessons and sequences of lessons across the age and ability range for which they are trained in which they:
    1. Use a range of teaching strategies and resources, including e-learning, taking practical account of diversity and promoting equality and inclusion.
    2. Build on prior knowledge, develop concepts and processes, enable learners to apply new knowledge, understanding and skills and meet learning objectives.
    3. Adapt their language to suit the learners they teach, introducing new ideas and concepts clearly, and using explanations, questions, discussions and plenaries effectively.
    4. Demonstrate the ability to manage the learning of individuals, groups and whole classes, modifying their teaching to suit the stage of the lesson.

Excellent teachers should: Have teaching skills which lead to excellent results and outcomes and have the ability to demonstrate excellent and innovative pedagogical practice.

Assessing, monitoring and giving feedback

26.  
    1. Make effective use of a range of assessment, monitoring and recording strategies.
    2. Assess the learning needs of those they teach in order to set challenging learning objectives.
27. Provide timely, accurate and constructive feedback on learners' attainment, progress and areas for development.
28. Support and guide learners to reflect on their learning, identify the progress they have made and identify their emerging learning needs.

Excellent teachers should: Have an excellent ability to provide learners, colleagues, parents and carers with timely, accurate and constructive feedback on learners' attainment, progress and areas for development that promotes pupil progress

Reviewing Teaching and Learning

29. Evaluate the impact of their teaching on the progress of all learners, and modify their planning and classroom practice where necessary.

Learning Environment

30. Establish a purposeful and safe learning environment conducive to learning and identify opportunities for learners to learn in out-of-school contexts.
31. Establish a clear framework for classroom discipline to manage learners' behaviour constructively and promote their self-control and independence.

Team Work & Collaboration

32. Work as a team member and identify opportunities for working with colleagues, sharing the development of effective practice with them.
33. Ensure that colleagues working with them are appropriately involved in supporting learning and understand the roles they are expected to fulfil.

Excellent teachers should:
Work closely with leadership teams, taking a leading role in developing, implementing and evaluating policies and practice that contribute to school improvement

Contribute to professional development of colleagues using a brief range of techniques and skills appropriate to their needs so that they demonstrate enhanced and effective practice