What are the professional standards?

The professional standards cover the following career stages:

• Q – qualified teacher status
• C – core standards for main scale teachers who have successfully completed their induction
• P – post-threshold teachers on the upper pay scale
• E – excellent teachers 
• A – advanced skills teachers (ASTs)

The standards are arranged in three inter-related sections:

• professional attributes
• professional knowledge and understanding, and
• professional skills.

The standards show clearly what is expected at each career stage.

Each set of standards builds on the previous set, so that a teacher being considered for the threshold would need to satisfy the threshold standards (P) and meet the core standards (C); a teacher aspiring to become an excellent teacher would need to satisfy the standards that are specific to that status (E) and meet the preceding standards (C and P); and a teacher aspiring to become an AST would need to satisfy the standards that are specific to that status (A) as well as meeting the preceding standards (C, P and E) – although they can apply for an AST post before going through the threshold.

Read the full introduction to the standards

Viewing the professional standards

You can view the professional standards for teachers on these pages. The standards are displayed vertically by career stage, but you can also navigate horizontally at each level.