New route into teaching for aspiring graduates

A new postgraduate teaching apprenticeship has been announced which aims to offer talented graduates an alternative route into the profession.

The new apprenticeship will provide hands-on experience for new recruits and a chance to learn from excellent, experienced teachers during training, as well as the incentive of potential employment as a qualified teacher at the end of the course.

It will launch in September next year and will mirror entry criteria and high-quality course content currently required of all other teacher trainees and will give schools across the country the opportunity to use the apprenticeship to recruit and train new teachers in-house.

It will run in parallel with School Direct Salaried (SDS) training, which already allows graduates to train while on the job and will be paid as unqualified teachers.

Schools not eligible for the apprenticeship levy, or require additional funds, will receive government funding to cover up to 90 per cent of training costs.

Education secretary Justine Greening said: “Getting the best people to train as teachers and into our classrooms is a crucial part of giving every child the high-quality education deserve.

“This new route will provide another pathway for talented graduates into a profession that will give them the chance to change lives for the better on a daily basis.”

In order to make sure apprentices are ready to enter the classroom full-time at the end of the course, schools have set assessment criteria to give them greater oversight of the training of prospective members of staff.

Applications for Initial Teacher Training are open through UCAS on October 26, allowing applicants to convert their place to an apprenticeship at a later date.

This is part of the government’s commitment to ensure there are three million high-quality apprenticeship starts by 2020.

The government is also piloting a new programme to reimburse student loan repayments for teachers in the early years of their careers.

Around 800 modern foreign language and 1,700 science teachers a year will be eligible for this pilot scheme.