'Teachers would get a bit fed up in the middle of their career and leave the profession, taking with them all that incredible experience and expertise that they built up. So a major driver was to try and stop this happening by creating what the DfE calls a golden thread. That golden thread is a teacher development system that goes, if you like, from cradle to grave of a career.'

'To be an effective practitioner, you need to be aware of these debates, you need to be aware that the evidence doesn't normally give you one definite conclusion, that actually education is so complex, with so many different variables. It can point you in some general directions, but it can't give you the precise answer for the class in front of you with all the particular variables that day.' 

'It's so important that mentors have a really in-depth knowledge of the evidence base behind the Early Career Framework. They understand what the whole point of this is, so they're completely bought into it, and that they see being on the ECF Programme as a professional learning opportunity of their own.'

'If you're lucky enough to work in a group of schools then you can actually replicate your own ‘golden thread’. I know quite a lot of groups of international schools are doing this already. In fact, some of what's happening in England is learning from the good practice that existed elsewhere already.'