Teaching apprenticeships can be used as part of your strategic workforce planning, to promote a diverse and inclusive workforce and support recruitment and retention. A common use of the teaching apprenticeship is for TAs/HLTAs to become teachers in the school in which they already work.

The postgraduate teaching apprenticeship is an initial teacher training (ITT) route that:

• Combines paid work with off-the-job training
• Leads to qualified teacher status (QTS).

Schools can employ apprentices but only accredited ITT providers can deliver the off the job training for the teaching apprenticeship.

Apprenticeship funding

If your organisation pays into the apprenticeship levy, you can access this funding to spend on a teaching apprenticeship. If your organisation does not pay into the levy, you can still take on an apprentice and only pay 5% towards the cost of training and assessment, with the government paying the rest. Find out more about this here.

Your school will need to pay the apprentice's salary (which should be in line with the unqualified teacher salary scale), but can apply for grant funding to subsidise this (grants vary dependent upon subject and phase).

The teacher apprenticeship programme

The teacher apprenticeship replicates the same high standards for entry and completion as those already required of all ITT programmes.

On the teacher apprenticeship, the training provider will decide the overall structure, ensuring there is a good balance between teaching and learning.

The key difference between a teaching apprenticeship and other ITT routes is that an apprentice must spend at least 20% of their time in off-the-job training. This means time that is spent training and learning during their ordinary working hours, separate from their work duties. This could include activities such as time spent with a mentor, time spent participating in online learning or self-study. How the minimum 20% requirement is managed is up to the employer, working alongside the training provider.

Having completed their training, a teacher apprentice will be assessed to see if they demonstrate the knowledge, skills and behaviours contained within the Teachers’ standards, as part of their apprenticeship end-point assessment.

Teaching apprenticeship providers

Our partner NTTC is an accredited teaching apprenticeship provider.