DfE: Becoming a Teacher Newsletter

Welcome

In your newsletter this month:

1. Update on Initial Teacher Training (ITT) quality requirements grant funding for 2025 to 2026

This year, ITT providers and placement schools were eligible to apply for multiple funding streams to help them deliver the new ITT requirements for the 2024 to 2025 academic year.

The funding included the general mentor grant, the intensive training and practice grant, and the lead mentor grant. Up until now, we have been unable to confirm whether this funding would be available in the 2025 to 2026 academic year.

As part of the multi-year spending review, we are now able to confirm that funding will be available for 2025 to 2026. Whilst we are still working through the exact level of available funding, we aim to confirm this as soon as possible. We are contacting you now to provide assurances that a funding settlement has been agreed for the 2025 to 2026 academic year.

As soon as we can confirm the funding levels for the coming academic year, we will let you know.

We realise that this process has made it difficult for providers and schools to budget without knowledge of whether funding would be available for 2025 to 2026, and we are grateful for your patience during this process.

If you have any questions about this funding, please email ittreform.funding@education.gov.uk.

2. Get Into Teaching events – new strategy for ITT 2026

From this autumn Get Into Teaching will deliver three major events per term across London, the Midlands and North.

This approach will allow us to reach around 65% of our current event attendee numbers while concentrating resources where engagement is highest, enabling us to maximise marketing campaign reach and impact.

To support providers across the country to continue to run their own events, we’re developing an enhanced provider toolkit to include:

Toolkit links will be available in future bulletins.

For enquiries relating to the Get Into Teaching events strategy, contact sarah.fell@education.gov.uk.

3. Update on Subject Knowledge Enhancement (SKE) availability for the remainder of this academic year

The majority of SKE providers are at or close to full capacity with regard to their allocation of funding for the remainder of this AY 2024/25. For those providers that still have funding available, this will most likely be committed to candidates already in their pipeline who were in receipt of offers before July. It is therefore likely there will be very limited availability for additional DfE funded SKE delivery for the remainder of this AY2024/25.

Candidates looking to secure a provider to support them with their training for this AY 2024/25 should review the SKE Directory for more information regarding providers still recruiting.

If you have any queries, please contact the SKE.INBOX@education.gov.uk.

4. End-point assessment (EPA) reforms

During National Apprenticeship Week, the department announced plans to reform end-point assessments, making the system simpler and more flexible.

Skills England will be reviewing assessment plans for each individual standard on a case-by-case basis. We anticipate that the teacher postgraduate standard (PGTA) (ST0490) and the teacher undergraduate standard (TDA) (ST1502) will be reviewed in August 2025. However, these timelines are subject to change and we recognise the need to provide clarity on how providers should proceed for the 2025 to 2026 academic year.

We have therefore agreed that until the new assessment plans have been published, providers should continue to follow the current assessment rules. This means providers do not need to engage an end-point assessment organisation (EPAO) before the start of the apprenticeship. This is outlined in paragraph 110 of the apprenticeship funding rules.

Once the assessment plans have been reviewed and published, the rules around changing to a new version of a standard, found in paragraphs 290 and 291 of the funding rules, will apply. At paragraph 341, Annex B of the new funding rules, it states that ‘the provider must engage an assessment organisation at the start of the apprenticeship’. We can confirm that for the 2 teaching standards, this will not apply if providers, in agreement with the employer and apprentice, wish to switch to the new assessment plan part-way through a course.

5. Postgraduate Teaching Apprenticeship (PGTA) and double funding

Some providers have also raised questions about trainees undertaking their end-point assessment (EPA) in September 2025 at the same time as beginning the early career framework (ECF), and whether or not this is classed as double funding.

We can confirm that this is not classed as double funding. There is a distinct difference in purpose between apprenticeship funding, which is designed to enable the individual to achieve occupational competence, and funding provided to support ECF training programmes which are designed to support new teachers in the first few years of their teaching careers.

Due to EPA availability issues, it has been agreed that provided the apprenticeship training has finished, an individual can start their ECF training programme while waiting for their EPA to take place. ECF training providers should ensure teachers are enrolled to begin their training course on time in September.

6. Successful flexible working program extended

We know that expanding and promoting flexible working opportunities in schools can help to recruit and retain great teachers, so we are delighted that the DfE funded flexible working programme has been extended.

The programme is focused on embedding flexible working in schools and multi academy trusts (MATs), enabling them to support their staff’s working lives in modern, practical ways.

Access to free support is available through the programme.

The level of support depends on individual requirements, ranging from accessible online resources covering a range of topics, to bespoke support from a flexible working ambassador.

For further information, view the guidance on flexible working support.

7. Apply for teacher training scholarships

Postgraduate scholarships are awarded in chemistry, computing, languages, mathematics, and physics.

Applications are still open for the scholarship programme in the following subjects (ITT 2025):

In addition to tax-free funding successful applicants will receive a range of additional subject specific benefits which may include:

For further information on the scholarships programme, please visit the Get Into Teaching guidance.

8. Using artificial intelligence (AI) in education settings: support materials

The Department for Education, in partnership with the Chiltern Learning Trust and Chartered College of Teaching, has published online resources to help all school and college staff use AI safely and effectively.

The resources include a toolkit for all educators, offering guidance on safe AI use as well as potential use cases, and a toolkit for leaders to support integration of AI into their broader digital strategies.

To supplement these materials, the Chartered College have also published a special edition of their ‘Impact’ Journal and a collection of case studies from primary, secondary, and special schools, academy trusts and colleges.

View the online resources for using AI safely and effectively.

9. The international qualified teacher status (iQTS) approvals process reopened on 19 June 2025

We have a new process for providers to apply to deliver iQTS. iQTS is a teaching qualification backed by the Department for Education (DfE) and the government in England. It meets the same high standards as English qualified teacher status (QTS) and leads to the automatic award of QTS. Applicants for iQTS train where they live and work, with no need to visit England.

Accredited ITT providers may be interested in delivering iQTS alongside their other international courses, or as a route to entering international markets and developing their professional partnerships overseas.

For further information, please view the apply to provide iQTS guidance.

10. Deadline to claim Initial Teacher Training (ITT) mentor funding: 25 July 2025

ITT placement schools can claim funding for the time their ITT mentors have spent in training this academic year (20204 to 2025).

Schools that have been added to the Register trainee teachers service by their accredited ITT providers will be onboarded fortnightly to the service.

The deadline to claim in this window is Friday 25 July 2025. You will not be able to submit a claim after this date, until the second window opens in September.

For further information, visit the general mentor training guidance or contact Service Support: ittmentor.funding@education.gov.uk if you have any issues.

11. Sign-up to the next Flexible ITT Webinar

It’s nearly time for the next Flexible ITT Webinar. Sign-up here to join other ITT Providers as they discuss giving trainees and candidates a ‘Choice about where to train’.

The webinar is on Tuesday 1 July 2025, at 2 to3pm

12. Invitation to join a webinar detailing changes to Publish as part of rollover in September 2025

The webinar will be held on Tuesday 15 July at 3pm. It will also be recorded and the link shared in July’s BAT newsletter.

The webinar will last 1 hour and will detail the changes made to Publish as part of rollover including:

Sign up to the webinar through Microsoft events.

13. Find candidates – add a bespoke message to your email invitations

In May we launched Find candidates, a new feature to allow you to search for local candidates who are still looking for places on courses. You can watch a guidance video about Find candidates to find out more.

This month we have added a field for you to add your own message to the email that we send to invite candidates to apply to your courses. You can use this to:

Please do not use this field to encourage candidates to move straight to interview. At the moment they need to submit an application before you can invite them to interview.

You can see what we are working on now and next on our public roadmap page

If you would like to access the Find candidates feature but don’t have access to the Manage service, please contact support to get set up.