Guidance

Intensive training and practice (ITAP)

Updated 15 June 2026

Applies to England

Summary  

This document is for accredited ITT providers when developing intensive training and practice elements of their ITT curricula. It supplements the content on ITAP contained within Initial teacher training (ITT): criteria and accompanying advice.  

This document provides additional detail to help accredited initial teacher training (ITT) providers to understand the intensive training and practice (ITAP) element of ITT, and to incorporate it into their ITT curricula in a way that maximises the potential benefits to, and impact on, trainees’ practice and understanding.

Who this publication is for

This document is for accredited ITT providers and their partner schools.

Evidence base

The Carter review of initial teacher training (2015) advocated for the application of models of “research-informed…clinical practice” into teacher training.

The Carter review found that the most effective programmes gave careful consideration as to how teacher training programmes were structured to ensure effective integration between the different types of knowledge and skills that trainees need to draw on in order to develop their own teaching. Programmes that privileged either ‘theory’ or ‘practice’ failed to take into account the necessity of such integration.

Models of ‘clinical practice’, where trainees have input from experts and can engage in a process where they were able to trial techniques and strategies and evaluate the outcomes, were found to be most effective. Importantly, by making explicit the reasoning and underlying evidence base used by expert teachers, trainees are supported to develop and extend their own decision-making capacities.

The ITT market review report (2021), informed by a range of literature and research on effective ITT, subsequently recommended the implementation of an intensive training and practice element into ITT programmes, which would provide the opportunity for trainees to practise specific techniques for effective teaching outside of the more general classroom experience.

Such an element would also consolidate trainees’ understanding of how research and evidence inform and shape practice, while allowing them to receive highly targeted feedback from experts.

Intensive training and practice (ITAP)

ITAP is a specific and focused element of the teacher training curriculum. It is intended to help consolidate trainees’ knowledge of key evidence-based principles for effective teaching, and to enable them to practise their application and integration into their developing professional practice.

It should, therefore, be designed to give trainees appropriate input, scaffolded practice and feedback in relation to selected foundational and specific aspects of the training curriculum where close attention to and control of content, critical analysis, application and feedback are required.

It should deepen trainees’ understanding and accelerate their practice of high-quality teaching, recognising teaching quality as the most important within school determinant of pupil outcomes.

Purpose of ITAP

The main aim of ITAP is to strengthen the link between evidence and classroom practice – therefore, some elements of ITAP will need to take place in a school environment. ITAP may also include the use of approximations of practice^{[footnote 1]} or elements delivered directly by the ITT institution or virtually, if helpful or necessary.

In designing ITAP, providers should consider how ITAP deepens trainees’ understanding (and practice) of high-quality teaching as the most important in-school factor in improving outcomes for all pupils, including those from disadvantaged backgrounds and those with additional needs.

ITAP will need to be led and supported by an appropriate range of experts. By ‘expert’ the definition used in the Initial Teacher Training and Early Career Core Content Framework is applied – professional colleagues, including:

• experienced and effective teachers
• subject specialists
• mentors and lead mentors
• lecturers
• tutors

In some situations, lead mentors may well be best placed to identify appropriate expert input for school-based elements of ITAP. It is important to ensure that whoever takes on this role is appropriately prepared and there is a means of quality assuring both the preparation and the impact of the expert input and feedback.

The majority of ITAP experiences are likely to need more expert input and feedback than can realistically be expected of all general mentors.

Key features

The key features of intensive training and practice involve:

• expert input – this would typically include:

  • an introduction to the aspect of practice (such as questioning, explanations, routine setting or specific behaviour strategies) with an examination and critical analysis of the evidence base underpinning it
  • observations of examples (and potentially selected non-examples) in practice via video or live practice
  • deconstruction of the above with an attention to the detail that has positive (or sometimes negative) impact
• opportunities for trainees to plan and practise aspects of this practice in a low stakes (possibly simulated) environment
• opportunities for trainees to practise in a live classroom context
• expert feedback on, and critical analysis of, the above trainee practice, in both contexts. This should include deconstruction of both positive features and areas for further development. It should also include discussion about the implications of this for future individual trainee planning, teaching, focused feedback and reflection
• expert feedback that links coherently to the expert input at the beginning of the sequence. Where trainees experience their live practice in a school where the expert is not present it may be necessary to video parts of this so that it can be analysed with the expert at a later point
• opportunities to apply the aspect of practice in the near future and beyond – ideally in multiple contexts and practice situations. The improvement in practice should be something that trainees will continue to benefit from in the long term

This final point is key in considering what good practice looks like. The purpose is to have a positive sustained impact on practice that is transferable to a range of contexts.

Weaving adaptive teaching for pupils with SEND across ITAP

The intensive nature of ITAP offers an opportunity to deepen trainees’ understanding and practice of pivotal elements of teaching and consider how these can be used successfully with pupils, including pupils with special educational needs and disability (SEND).

Focusing on certain pupils in particular, ITAP may allow trainees to develop greater depth of understanding at key moments in teaching practice, rather than the focus on the whole class, which may be more common in other areas of training. There are 2 ways to deliver ITAP on SEND:

• a lens of SEND and adaptive teaching can be woven throughout ITAP This includes considering how approaches to SEND are part of ITAP focus areas such as classroom routines, questioning or scaffolding. This would allow trainees to consider pupils with SEND at each step of the ITAP cycle from reviewing the evidence and seeing it modelled to critically evaluating, practicing and gaining feedback
• ITAP on specific SEND-related teaching elements on areas, such as working with pupils who have challenges in executive function

How ITAP is different from the rest of the ITT curriculum and school placements

ITAP should focus tightly on specific, foundational or pivotal areas of the ITT curriculum. It is an opportunity for careful sequencing of content, so that it is clear why each successive focus for ITAP has been chosen, including how it builds on content previously covered and prepares for the next stages in the training programme.

Expert input and feedback on granular examples of this practice is crucial. It should demonstrate and build the interaction between evidence-based theory and practice, engaging trainees in critical analysis, application of what has been learned to classroom practice and focused feedback on such practice.

ITAP can also provide an opportunity to be more granular in trainee disposition and self-efficacy especially in relation to pupils who need extra support at times.

While effective mentoring may well include many of these elements, it is unrealistic that standard placement experience, which is necessarily more immersive in character, can facilitate all these requirements with the intensity of specific expert input, practice and expert feedback on the carefully selected and sequenced focus areas of ITAP.

The intensive training and practice element, in which trainees experience a minimum of 4 weeks (postgraduate ITT) or 6 weeks (undergraduate ITT) of ITAP, is additional to the 120 days spent on general school placements – though it does not need to be delivered in a single block. ITAP should be located at suitable points to ensure maximum impact on trainees’ progress.

Selection of ITAP topics

ITAP topics can be very varied – crucially, according to the point in the trainee curriculum and the specific needs of the contexts in which they are operating.

Accredited ITT providers should, therefore, not feel constrained by the examples below. These have been selected from the videos that the Department for Education has produced in collaboration with the National Association of School-Based Teacher Trainers (NASBTT) but are not exhaustive.

Examples of topics include:

• effective modelling
• scaffolding
• transitions
• questioning for assessment and understanding
• explanations
• feedback
• behaviour – routines

• providers may explore the lens of inclusive teaching through ITAP areas of focus. For example:

  • planning over a series of lessons to remove barriers to success
  • ensuring attention and focus
  • developing understanding and applying new concepts
  • supporting communication needs

Timings and other considerations

For any chosen topic, accredited ITT providers should consider when it is likely to have most impact, be most immediately implemented in practice and also be an area for a trainee’s longer-term development. Considerations might include:

• how much prior experience and knowledge is needed for the topic to make sense to the trainee and have application to their practice
• whether the area of focus (such as, behaviour and classroom routines) is likely to be a barrier to trainee progress until it is addressed
• whether it is an aspect where, historically, trainees have had difficulty and where improvement can make a step change in their progress
• how well this topic can be reinforced in both centre- and school-based experiences so that it becomes consolidated and embedded in practice
• whether this topic can be returned to, experienced, critically analysed and compared and contrasted in a variety of situations and contexts (including simulated where appropriate and remote)
• whether the ITAP topic includes explicit explanation of its broader relevance and how to adapt it for different teaching contexts

Monitoring and evaluating the impact of ITAP

For ITAP to be effective, it must be integral to the training curriculum and individual trainee progress in practice and understanding. It is important, therefore, that accredited ITT providers give careful consideration to how they will be able to monitor and evaluate the impact each ITAP experience has had, both on individual trainee practice and on the coherence and progression of the trainee curriculum.

Considerations might include:

• whether trainees can articulate the impact of ITAP on their practice
• whether mentors can evidence this
• whether ITAP training is to be revisited throughout the training curriculum
• whether it is possible to draw on ITAP experiences as part of assignments and other assessments
• whether placement guidance and reporting links appropriately to ITAP
• whether ITAP is supporting trainees to enact high quality teaching for all pupils – including those from disadvantaged backgrounds and those with additional needs

1. Approximations provide opportunities for trainees to rehearse and reflect on parts of teaching in lower-stakes, supportive settings where trainees can receive feedback from teacher educators and peers. ↩