Role and responsibilities

Headteachers are asked to make summative assessments of the NQT’s teaching and progress based on termly assessment meetings between the induction tutor and/or the headteacher and the NQT.

The headteacher has two key responsibilities:

• to ensure that each NQT in their school is provided with an appropriate induction programme, in line with national arrangements, and
• to make a recommendation to the local authority (LA), based on rigorous and fair assessment procedures, as to whether the NQT has met the induction standards.

These overall responsibilities imply a range of more specific functions that are set out below. The headteacher may wish to delegate many of the associated tasks to the induction tutor or other suitably experienced colleagues, but the responsibilities themselves cannot be delegated.

Specific functions

In order to meet these responsibilities as required by the school teachers’ pay and conditions document, the headteacher must ensure that the NQT is provided with a timetable representing no more than 90 per cent of the average contact time normally allocated to more experienced teachers in the school. The headteacher will need to ensure that the time released is protected, is distributed appropriately throughout the induction period and is used to support the NQT’s development from the start of induction. This will mean:

• designating an induction tutor for each NQT, and ensuring that the induction tutor is prepared and can work effectively in the role. Some headteachers may wish to designate themselves as induction tutors
• ensuring that any duties assigned to the NQT are reasonable
• providing the NQT with a way of raising concerns about the induction programme, and making sure that these are addressed satisfactorily
• informing the local authority as soon as possible about any NQT who may be at risk of failing to meet the induction standards and observing the teaching of any NQT concerned, and
• keeping the governing body informed about arrangements for the induction of NQTs in the school, and the results of formal assessment meetings.

Other tasks

The headteacher may wish to delegate these tasks, while retaining overall responsibility:

• devising, together with the NQT, a targeted monitoring, support and assessment programme, building on their use of the CEDP and drawing on external resources where relevant
• making arrangements for additional experience that the NQT may need in settings outside the school (for example, in a nursery or post-16 setting), or for further specialist support for an NQT teaching a minority subject
• telling the local authority when any teacher who is subject to the induction arrangements either joins or leaves the school
• sending the local authority the reports completed after formal assessment meetings
• liaising with other headteachers and local authorities as appropriate in relation to NQTs employed on a part-time basis in more than one school at the same time
• making sure that any relevant reports and records are obtained from any school(s) in which an NQT has served part of his or her induction, and forwarding copies of any previously completed assessment reports to the local authorities 
• making sure that copies of all documents such as objectives, action plans, and review meeting reports are kept until induction has been completed satisfactorily and any appeal determined
• keeping copies of any records or assessment reports for those NQTs who leave the school before completing induction, and forwarding these to the NQT’s new school as quickly as possible when requested, and 
• submitting the relevant assessment form (obtained from the local authorities or downloaded from the Teachernet website) to the appropriate body within 10 working days of completion of the induction period.

The headteacher is responsible for ensuring that procedures are in place to make sure that the induction tutors working with NQTs understand the profile process and their role within it. Where schools have appointed an induction co-ordinator, this responsibility may be delegated to that person.

Induction tutors will be supporting NQTs at transition points two and three of the profile process but they will also refer to the responses recorded by the NQTs at transition point one, to find out more about prior experience and the strengths, development needs and aspirations they identified.

Career entry and development profile

The CEDP is designed to help trainee and newly qualified teachers think about their development at three transition points: towards the end of ITT, at the start of induction and at the end of induction. The profile process supports the continued reflection on teaching and development established during initial teaching training.