Further Education

Minimum Core Guidance

The Minimum Core Guidance was introduced in 2004 to support awarding organisations and teacher education programmes to equip trainee teachers in developing inclusive approaches to addressing the literacy, language, numeracy and ICT needs of their learners.

Revised in 2007, it became part of all initial teacher training programmes as an important aspect of professional development.

The 2015 Guidance for inspecting initial teacher education training includes a renewed emphasis on the importance of teachers actively promoting the development of English, maths and ICT within all learning programmes. Current inspection of initial teacher education programmes now includes evaluation of the extent to which the training enables trainee teachers to:

• develop the reading, writing, communication and mathematical skills of the learners they teach

• assess learners’ achievement and plan and teach lessons that enable learners, including those who are disabled and those who have special educational needs, to make at least expected progress

• use a range of approaches to teaching and learning, including information and communication technology (ICT) and educational technology where relevant.

The partnership has developed a range of resources that map each trainee journeyagainst the expectations for the Minimum Core Guidance. This includes what is expected of university and setting based training at each stage. The mapping document can be found here.