The government has confirmed it will cut the length of the postgraduate teaching apprenticeship from 12 to nine months to bring them in line with the school year.
The change, which will come into effect in August, comes as analysis shows interest in the route continues to increase, with recruitment already a third higher in the first half of this academic year compared with the same period last year.
The postgraduate teaching apprenticeship is a one-year course for graduates and leads to both a level 6 qualification and qualified teacher status. It is different from the four-year teaching degree apprenticeship for non-graduates currently being piloted.
But its 12-month minimum length causes a headache for schools. Apprentices gain QTS after nine months, meaning some drop out of the apprenticeship part of the training. If this happens, the government claws back funding.
Analysis shows about 85 per cent of participants complete the year.
The route has become increasingly popular as schools seek ways to spend money paid into the apprenticeship levy and trainees seek a way of earning while they learn.
Schools Week analysis found there were 1,702 starts on the postgraduate apprenticeship between August 2024 and January this year, up 33 per cent from 1,283 in the same period the year before.
Unlike other routes, apprentices don’t always start training in September. In 2023-24, more than 400 starts were registered between February and July.
Figures from the Department for Education also show that last year about 2,800 eligible applicants were “unable to secure a place on a coveted course”.
Ministers hope that by changing the course’s duration, more schools and providers will take on apprentices. Grant funding is available to pay towards training for certain shortage subjects.
‘A simple solution’
Sir Andrew Carter is chief executive of the South Farnham Educational Trust, which hires dozens of apprentices every year and was involved in the route’s design.
He said the 12-month rule “added a great sense of jeopardy” to hiring apprentices, and his trust had wanted a change “for a very long time”.
Carter said more schools would now hire apprentices, which was an “opportunity for the DfE and others, all of us in the business” to convince sceptical leaders of the benefits of the course.
“It’s such a simple solution. Recruitment in England and Wales is simply solved, and yet we don’t seem to have grasped the nettle.”
Pepe Di’Iasio, the general secretary of the leaders’ union ASCL, said there was a limited number of places available largely because of the demand placed on employers.
“There are workload implications for the school as a whole, as well as individual teachers and the apprentice themselves, and this needs to be supported with appropriate investment.”
He said shortening the apprenticeships would make them “easier to accommodate, but the fact remains that apprenticeships are only a suitable route into teaching for a relatively small number of people”.
The DfE insisted courses would still offer “the same high-quality content, but at a reduced length, with trainees gaining qualified teacher status after they have completed the programme, going on to build successful careers in teaching”.
Catherine McKinnell, the schools minister, said bringing teaching apprenticeships in line with the school year was “not only logical, it will open the doors for more and more people to become brilliant teachers”.
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