About us
We support teachers and leaders across the Further Education and Training sector to help them achieve their professional development goals for the benefit of learners and employers across England.
In doing so, we help to transform the lives of individuals and communities across the country, unleashing potential and benefitting the economy.
What we do
We support teachers and leaders across the Further Education and Training sector to help them achieve their professional development goals for the benefit of learners and employers across England. In doing so, we help to transform the lives of individuals and communities across the country, unleashing potential and benefitting the economy.
Our work has three key principles at its heart:
- The first is that we exist for the benefit of learners, something we achieve by improving the professional practice of teachers and leaders in the sector.
- The second is that we exist as a means to an end, not an end in itself. We have no shareholders and make no profit. Everything we do is about helping our fantastic sector unlock the talents and potential of our learners and improving productivity, employability, skills and educational attainment.
- And the third is that we exist to support professionals to be even better than they already are, identifying excellence and seeking to understand and disseminate it through collaborative practice. Although our work focuses on FE and Training, we bring in expert challenge and support from outside the sector.
Our Vision and Role
The Education and Training Foundation (ETF) is the expert body for professional development and standards in Further Education (FE) and Training in England. Our role is to design, develop and deliver continuous professional development (CPD) for teachers, leaders and trainers to support government policy and meet sector needs. We have a charitable purpose to improve education and training for learners aged 14 and over.
The ETF believes that the key to improving education and training is to support teachers and their leaders to excel.
Everything the ETF does is in pursuit of our vision of:
- Highly effective, professionally confident teachers and trainers
- First class leadership of the sector
- FE as the career of choice for ambitious professionals who wish to make a difference.
To achieve our vision, we pursue four outward-facing strategic objectives and one which is internally-focused:
- Grow the capacity of the sector
- Lead the sector’s own development activities
- Influence the system’s priorities, thinking and behaviour
- Develop the capability of the sector
- Evolve the ETF to continuously adapt and thrive (internal objective)
Our Values
Our values underpin our approach in supporting the continual transformation of the technical and vocational education system in the UK, they also reflect our ethos and culture.
Developed by our staff, they guide us in how we work with teachers, trainers, leaders, partners and stakeholders alongside how we behave and operate as a team.
Our Values:
- Responsive: We listen and provide effective solutions
- Striving for Excellence: We aim for the highest standards in everything we do
- Inclusive: We reflect your views in our thinking and in our actions
- Expert: We base our decisions on evidence and expertise
- Trustworthy: We are open, honest and act with integrity.
Our Professional Development offer
We have a strong relationship with the Department for Education, which recognises our unique expertise and funds many of the programmes we deliver.
That support includes:
- leadership development
- T Level professional development
- maths and English enhancement
- Prevent training
- digital teaching skills.
Additional support
As well as professional development programmes we support recruitment into the sector and provide key data and research.
We are also the guardian of the sector’s Professional Standards and home to the professional membership body for the sector, the Society for Education and Training (SET), whose 22,000 plus members we support. SET is responsible for the awarding of both Qualified Teacher Learning and Skills (QTLS) status and Advanced Teacher Status (ATS).
If you’d like to find out more about what the staff at ETF have to say about working there and the organisational culture visit ETF Careers site.