How cohort closures and changes work

Cohort closures

When a cohort is closed, it means:

  • lead providers will no longer be able to receive payments for training participants remaining in that cohort until they are moved to the 2024 cohort
  • DfE will stop generating output fee statements for the closed cohort
  • we’ll move partially trained early career teachers (ECTs) from the closed cohort to the 2024 cohort if there’s evidence they require training
  • lead providers can no longer void declarations for participants remaining in that cohort
  • no declarations should be submitted for participants remaining in that cohort

How we’ll handle participants in closed cohorts

Partially trained ECTs from closed cohorts

We’ll move ECTs to the 2024 cohort when there’s evidence they require training.

This move will happen automatically when:

  • a partially trained 2021 or 2022 ECT is registered at a new school
  • a school changes the lead provider for a 2021 or 2022 ECT

In these cases, we’ll assign an extended September schedule (extended-september). This follows the same approach used in the manage training for ECTs service.

Once the participant is in the 2024 cohort and the correct partnership is in place, providers will be able to continue getting their details over the API and declare for them in line with the 2024 milestones.

If there’s been a mistake and the ECT shouldn’t have been moved to the 2024 cohort and is not continuing with training, you can move them back to their original closed cohort.

If an ECT doesn’t meet one of the above criteria for an automatic move, they’ll stay visible in GET participants for their original 2021 or 2022 cohort. You will not be able to submit declarations for them.

ECTs that only received a started declaration in a closed cohort may completely restart their training in the early career training programme (ECTP). You will have to update them to a 2025 or later cohort over the API.

ECTs with no declarations submitted against them have been archived. Schools can re-register them at any point to start training.

Mentors from closed cohorts

We will not transfer mentors to the 2024 cohort because they may not be eligible for further training.

Check the fully trained mentor guidance that was emailed out to lead providers. Speak to your contract manager about any other specific cases.

Mentors that only received a started declaration in a closed cohort may completely restart their training in the ECTP in a later cohort.

ECTs and mentors with no eligible, payable, paid, awaiting_clawback or clawed_back declarations

These participants were archived in closed cohorts. Providers should retire their records. If they’re re-registered in the later academic years, they’ll have new IDs.

Identifying ECTs who we’ve moved to the 2024 cohort

To help providers identify these ECTs in the API, there’s a field in the GET participants API endpoints named cohort_changed_after_payments_frozen.

For ECTs who’ve moved to the 2024 cohort, the field will have a true value in it.

When calling the GET participants endpoint, the ECT’s cohort value will be 2024. When calling the GET participant-declarations endpoint, the ECT will have historical declarations in their original cohort.

Providers can identify which cohort participants have moved from by taking the following steps:

  1. Start by checking the GET participants endpoint for participants who’ve moved to the 2024 cohort after originally starting their training in 2021 or 2022. They’re identified by the cohort_changed_after_payments_frozen attribute being true.

  2. Then, using the GET participant-declarations or GET participant-declarations/{id} endpoint and filtering by participant_id, find the statement_id.

  3. Finally, call GET statements/{id}. The cohort field in the response shows which cohort each declaration was originally made in.

We’ll also assign these ECTs to the ecf-extended-september schedule. This allows providers to submit any required declarations for these ECTs.

Identifying a participant’s training needs

When providers receive a participant who has moved to the 2024 cohort from a closed cohort, we recommend they focus on:

  • understanding how much training the participant has left
  • when they last engaged with training
  • where they were previously undertaking their training

Many of these participants will have experienced stop-start or interrupted training journeys, often due to deferrals or other changes.

There’s no automated process to determine their continuation point of training or how much induction an ECT has left to serve, so it’s important for providers to confirm this directly with:

  • the participant
  • the participant’s school
  • the participant’s appropriate body
  • the participant’s previous provider