You may have already come across the term ‘Appropriate Body’ in relation to Early Career Teacher induction or, if you haven’t, you will do when you begin induction in a school –but what does this mean? What are they appropriate for?
The aim of this article is to explain to you who this is, and the role that they play in an ECT’s induction.
What is an ‘Appropriate Body’?
An Appropriate Body is an organisation that has the main Quality Assurance role in ECT induction; they ensure that ECTs receive their statutory entitlements and that the support, assessment and guidance procedures in place are fair, rigorous and appropriate.
All ECTs must be registered with an Appropriate Body before they can begin induction in a school.
It is not your school, but the Appropriate Body –acting on the recommendation of your school at the end of your induction period and the Progress Reviews, Assessment Reports and quality assurance processes completed during the course of your induction–who makes the final decision as to whether you pass your statutory induction period or not.
Who can act as Appropriate Body?
Up until the end of last schoolyear (August 2023), the vast majority of Appropriate Bodies were Local Authorities –meaning that schools had just over 300 Appropriate Bodies to pick from; whilst the DfE’s desire was (and still is) that schools use the Appropriate Body serving their location, this has never been an absolute requirement, allowing them to come to an arrangement with the most appropriate Appropriate Body for their needs.
However, in November 2022, the DfE made the decision –following a consultation process –that, in order tobring clearer accountability and greater consistency to Appropriate Body services, this function would be removed from Local Authorities and instead given to the network of around 85 Teaching School Hubs serving England.
As a result:
Each Training School Hub-based Appropriate Body will take on the responsibility from a number of Local Authorities – the thirty-three London boroughs, each of which were Appropriate Bodies, will instead be served by ten Training School Hub-based Appropriate Bodies.
The Training School Hub-based Appropriate Body replacing Lambeth is London South Training School Hub (LSTSH); as well as serving Lambeth schools, they will be serving schools in Lewisham and Southwark as well.
What do Appropriate Bodies do?
This article isn’t the place to try to explain how an Appropriate Body ensures that everything that should be happening regarding your induction actually takes place, but an Appropriate Body should be making sure:
As you can see, your Appropriate Body is not someone or something on the periphery of your induction, but they are actively involved in making sure that the two years of your induction are as productive and rewarding as they should be, to allow you to develop into the best possible teacher you can be at then end of this time.
Is there anything your Appropriate Body isn’t involved with?
Whilst your Appropriate Body will want to know that you are receiving an ECF-based training programme as part of your induction and, where your school chooses to deliver a programme themselves – rather than through a Provider-led programme – they will carry out checks to ensure the programme meets requirements, the Appropriate Body won’t require any proof of attendance or learning during the programme, through needing to see written assignments etc., nor do you have to pass the training element of induction.
They will expect, instead, to see evidence of the learning from your training programme impacting your practice through the commentary written by your Induction Tutor in the progress reviews and assessment reports submitted during the course of your induction.
It may be the case that your school registers you with the same Training School Hub to provide both the Appropriate Body and Provider-led ECF training programme elements of your induction – however, these processes are distinct from one another.
Hopefully, you now know what an Appropriate Body is, and how to best use yours during your induction…