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Initial Teacher Training record 2016/17 (C16053): Annual update - Outcomes

This is formal notification of changes to the ITT record, and follows a year of consultation and development activity.

In May 2015 we released a consultation Part A which resulted in a summary of responses being produced. In November 2015 we released the part B consultation, which explored the themes raised earlier in more detail, and made more concrete proposals. The results of this consultation have been summarised and are available now, following presentation at the HESA/NCTL user group in January 2016.

Our thanks to all those who took part in the above activities.

There follows a summary of all the changes that will be made to the ITT record as a result of this work. Some of these changes will impact on the C16051 Student record, as detailed here.

Subject Knowledge Enhancement courses

These courses will be removed from coverage in the C16053 Initial Teacher Training record and the C16051 Student record. Changes to remove the relevant fields and valid entries will be announced to take effect in the following reporting year.

Removal of the Student.DISCFUND field

This field will be removed, as the data is no longer required by NCTL.

Reform of data on qualification aims, professional status and entry routes

Acting on shared concerns that the data model for these areas of the record had fallen behind structural changes to the ITT sector, we consulted on and can now confirm the following changes to the logical model. These changes form a suite, and together will enable the different aspects of ITT provision to be recorded in a way that enables future flexibility.

Student.TTCID

This field will be reformed to store only the type of qualified status that a student aims to gain (QTS, EYTS or another ITT course without these statuses). If other types of qualified status are created in future, this field is now flexible enough to cope with them. The following values will therefore be removed:

  • 8 - NCTL funded flexible provision (this no-longer exists)
  • G - School Direct Training Programme (moves into the new Entry Route field).

Student.ITTAIM

This field will be reformed to hold only the general qualification aim of the programme in terms of both qualifications and professional statuses. In future, the valid entries will be as follows:

  • Professional status only
  • Both professional status and academic award
  • Professional status by assessment only.

Qualification Aim

This new field will perform a function analogous to COURSEAIM in the Student record - recording the academic qualification aim of the programme, only.

  • BA
  • BA (Hons)
  • BEd
  • BEd (Hons)
  • BSc
  • BSc (Hons)
  • Postgraduate Certificate in Education
  • Professional Graduate Certificate in Education
  • Postgraduate Diploma in Education
  • Undergraduate Master of Teaching.

Entry route

This new field will indicate the route by which the student has accessed ITT provision. This field will be how School Direct entrants can be identified, and is flexible to cope with the introduction of other entry routes in future. This field will also be placed on the Student record.

  • Provider-led
  • School Direct tuition fee
  • School Direct salaried
  • EYITT Graduate Entry
  • EYITT Graduate employment-based
  • EYITT Undergraduate Entry
  • EYITT Assessment Only
  • EYITT School Direct.

Removal of Student.MSTUFEE field

The above changes make the Student.MSTUFEE field redundant, and it will be removed from the record.

Student.FUNDCODE

Code 7 will be relabelled to 'Eligible for funding by NCTL'. The purpose of this valid entry will not change.

Email addresses

Student email addresses will be collected in a new field. Collection will be required in the July update. NCTL have confirmed the following:

"At the time of establishing trainee records, the NCTL does not have a direct relationship with the trainees. The process to collect contact data from trainees is currently a paper-based exercise. This collection and limited use of contact data permits a digital process to be instigated, cutting government and HEP costs, and improving the process for most NQTs.

"Under the current process, each year, the NCTL cannot contact 20% of NQTs to notify them of their QTS awards and advise how to access their certificates. This results in a high number of NCTL helpdesk enquiries and delays for certain NQTs receiving their certificates.

"NCTL will use the email address to request that Student Teachers log-in to or create an account on the NCTL Teacher Services Portal, at the time that QTS is awarded, and for no other purpose. The NCTL will delete the email address within three months of its supply (following the July update).

"Since the purpose of the email is to communicate to Newly-Qualified Teachers to ask them to log in to the NCTL Teacher Services Portal, Initial Teacher Training providers are encouraged to provide whichever email address they hold and deem most likely to be current."

This field will be optional in 2016/17, and mandatory in 2017/18.

Validating the Teacher Reference Number (TRN)

Validation will be introduced to ensure all numbers returned are only 7 digits in length. Null entries will be accepted where appropriate. This will also be introduced to the Student record (C16051).

A Level data

NCTL has received ministerial queries relating to A Level performance of ITT students. We are currently in discussion with NCTL to agree a method of deriving this information programmatically by linking Initial Teacher Training records with previous HESA Student records, aiming to avoid additional data collection. We will update you on this work in due course.

Student record fields: Student.NATION, Student.NATIOND and EntryProfile.DOMICILE

These three fields from the HESA Student record will be incorporated into the Initial Teacher Training record. This is to enable NCTL to respond to Parliamentary Questions, Written Questions, and FOI Requests on complex citizenship/nationality issues. It will also enable NCTL to perform analysis on trainee demographics at the start of an academic year, rather than waiting till the Student record is delivered.

Bursary-related information

Following feedback from providers, a new sub-entity will be created under the ITT in-year-record's Student entity. The new entity will record previous qualifications. Because these are usually related to the bursary awarded, a new flag field will be present for providers to signify which qualifications supported their bursary decision. There will also be a flag to indicate which is the undergraduate degree (we will look into the possibility of deriving this flag programmatically)

The following existing fields will be recreated and perform the same function within the new entity.

  • PGCECLSS
  • PGCESBJ
  • DEGCTRY
  • DEGENDDT
  • DEGEST
  • DEGLENGTH
  • DEGSTDT
  • DEGTYPE.

The new entity can be returned as many times as required.

Placement Schools data: in the C16051 Student record

The NCTL currently collects placement schools data for all types of ITT, other than for 'provider-led' ITT. Placement school data are now required for 'provider-led' ITT. The data will be collected in the Student record. The data will be collected in a pair of fields that can be returned up to five times. The first new field will require a URN for the placement school as shown on EduBase. The counterpart field will be used to enter the number of days of that placement. Up to five placements may be captured. If there are more than five, then the longest five should be returned. For the C16051 year, only the two longest placements will be required.

Collection dates

The following collection dates have been agreed with NCTL and are presented here ahead of the first Coding Manual release.

  • 5 September 2016: Data collection system opens
  • 28 October 2016: Commit date - Finalised data submission and sign off required on HEIDMS
  • 01 October - 28 October 2016: NCTL data quality checking period
  • 04 January - 3rd February 2017: NCTL Update window
  • July 2017: NCTL Forecast Update
  • 29 July 2017: End of the reporting period.