6th July 2020

Can I use the Apprenticeship Levy with Teacher Training?

The Apprenticeship Levy was set up to fund training in organisations across the UK. Employers pay into their apprenticeship levy service account on a monthly basis, this money can be used to cover the costs of training staff members – meaning smaller organisations have the same opportunities as larger ones to grow and develop their staff. Employers with a payroll over £3million pay into the levy, and the scheme funds apprenticeship training both instead of and after university.

Schools can use funding from the apprenticeship levy to pay for the cost of training a teacher after they have graduated from university. Teachers benefit from the scheme as they are able to gain practical experience in the classroom whilst training for their PGCE and receiving a salary. Schools benefit from funding and can ‘grow their own teachers’ to fill staffing gaps.

Our partner schools can hire graduates through our unique teacher training course, with options for the majority of costs to be covered by the school, MAT or LEA’s apprenticeship levy service account.

How Does Apprenticeship Levy Funding Work?

The costs of training and assessing new teachers in your school can be covered entirely by the money in your apprenticeship levy service account. For each teaching apprenticeship, £9,000 will be withdrawn from your school, trust or local authority’s levy. This means that schools will only have to cover recruitment and employment costs during the course – trainees on the teaching apprenticeship programme must be paid at least point one of the unqualified teacher scale.

Schools that don’t pay into the levy can make use of the government’s co-funding initiative, meaning that the school will only be liable for 5% of the training & assessment costs (ie. £450).

Further savings can be made to contribute towards salary and employment on-costs. For example, for apprentices under 25 years of age, employers are exempt from paying National Insurance. On top of this, the DfE offer salary grants to schools taking on teaching apprentices in the top priority subjects, which are as follows:

The Engage Teacher Training Programme is designed to support schools in their decision to take on a graduate. We offering ongoing support to both school and trainee and a focus on staff retention through CPD. There are plenty of other great benefits to our Teacher Training Program too!

• Applications accepted throughout the year for multiple start dates

• High-calibre pool of candidates

• Full candidate screening process including assessment days, literacy tests and eligibility checks
• Support from our expert consultants throughout your graduate training

Utilising the apprenticeship levy to pay for training is an economical and efficient way to reduce the complexity around hiring graduate teachers. We can take a lot of the hard work out of the process for you, ensuring that candidates are suited to your school’s needs and you are maximising funding opportunities – get in touch with one of our expert consultants today!