On 4 February 2024, the DfE
announced a new teacher degree apprenticeship (TDA) launching this autumn. The TDA will offer an alternative route for people to become qualified teachers who may not be able to take time out to study full-time for a degree, including teaching assistants or staff already working in schools.
Trainees on the new teacher degree apprenticeship will spend around 40% of their time studying for their degree with an accredited teacher training provider, gain qualified teacher status and have all their tuition fees paid for.
To support schools to offer the new apprenticeship, the government is launching 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 training the following year.
Successful providers will design TDA courses in secondary mathematics and partner with employing schools to deliver the TDA. Schools that employ trainees as part of the pilot will receive financial incentives to support with trainee salary costs to cover the proportion of time trainees will spend studying towards their qualification. The TDA funding pilot will be a one-cohort pilot, with trainees recruited in 2024/25 to start their training in 2025/26. Evidence from the pilot will be used to inform the future of the funding programme.
The pilot application form will be live for the next five weeks. Successful pilot providers will receive grant funding towards the end of March to support with the costs of course development and candidate recruitment at pace.
Providers and employing schools will be able to develop and run TDA courses without additional funding within the same timeframes as the pilot.
For more information on the TDA pilot, see
here. (This page includes information on requesting a draft standard for providers who are interested in developing courses, both as part of the funding pilot and otherwise.)