New teacher degree apprenticeship will support schools to recruit and retain the excellent teachers they need in vital subjects including maths.
A new teaching apprenticeship will launch this autumn revolutionising the way schools recruit teachers while supporting more people to earn while they study for a degree.
The teacher degree apprenticeship will offer a high-quality, alternative route for people to become qualified teachers. This includes people who may not be able to take time out to study full-time for a degree such as teaching assistants or staff already working in schools, to access this route to a rewarding profession.
Trainees on the new teacher degree apprenticeship will spend around 40 per cent of their time studying for their degree with an accredited teacher training provider, gain qualified teacher status and all tuition fees are paid for, so trainees won’t be saddled with the student debt.
The announcement coincides with national apprenticeship week. Apprenticeships are a brilliant way for people of all ages and backgrounds to build successful careers in a huge range of professions from nursing to medical doctors and space engineering to fusion technology, with opportunities available at all levels up to a degree level.
Since 2010, over 5.7 million people have started their apprenticeship journey and the government is increasing investment in apprenticeships to £2.7 billion by 2024-25, ensuring businesses have a pipeline of talent to grow the economy.
Apprenticeships are a cornerstone of the government’s plans to provide people with an excellent route into some of the best careers and contributing to a high-skill, high-productivity economy.
There are record numbers of teachers working in schools – up by 27,000 since 2010. To attract the brightest and the best teachers, the government is investing £196 million this academic year to get more teachers across key subjects.
The TDA will build on this by diversifying the route into teaching and ensuring schools across the country can continue to recruit the teachers they need so young people have access to the top teaching talent they need to succeed. There are almost 400,000 individual teaching assistants in state funded schools in England. The TDA will provide a new route for teaching assistants who do not have an existing degree to train to become a teacher and continue their career progression in the classroom.
By the end of 2022 almost 90 per cent of 16-17 year olds were in education or apprenticeships. The latest figures show an 11% increase in the number of young people starting their apprenticeship journey compared to the same point last year, with young people continuing to make up over half of all apprenticeship starts.
As the government prepares to introduce the new advanced british standard, which will see all young people study some form of English and maths to the age of 18, it will be more important than ever for schools to attract and retain teachers in these vital subjects.
To support schools to offer the new apprenticeship, the government will launch a pilot scheme working with a small number of schools and teacher training providers to fund up to 150 apprentices to work in secondary schools to teach maths. Training providers will bid to partake in the pilot and trainees will be recruited from this autumn and start their training the following year.
Degree level apprenticeships have grown in popularity in recent years with a wide range of opportunities already available including construction, accounting and law.
The Department for Education and the Institute for Apprenticeships and Technical Education (IfATE) are working with an employer-led trailblazer group to develop the teacher degree apprenticeship to ensure it is high quality and meets the needs of schools.
The teacher degree apprenticeship is a four-year training programme and will be available for people to train as primary or secondary teachers. It will build on the postgraduate teaching apprenticeship (PGTA) by offering a work-based route to attaining degree and qualified teacher status (QTS).
The teacher degree apprenticeship grant funding pilot will be a one-cohort pilot and evidence will be used to inform the future of the programme. Providers and employing schools will be able to develop and run teacher degree apprenticeship courses without additional funding within the same timeframes as the pilot.