Wannabe teacher? Worried about your Skills Tests? We’ve got some good news for you!

The Department for Education has announced that thousands of would-be teachers are now eligible for three attempts at the professional skills tests they must pass to begin Initial Teacher Training (ITT) before they incur any cost, rather than one.

On top of this change – worth up to £77 per candidate – the government has removed the lock-out period that previously prevented candidates from re-taking tests for two years if they had been unsuccessful in two re-sits.

The announcement builds on a number of measures to recruit and retain high-calibre teachers, including a £75million investment in teachers’ professional development and follows the recruitment of 32,000 new trainees in 2017.

In full today’s changes are:

• The removal of a lock-out period that previously prevented aspiring teachers from re-taking tests for two years;
• No limit on the number of tests, and the first three tests are free of charge to all candidates; and
• Refunds for anyone who has already paid for tests in this year’s recruitment cycle – on or since 24 October 2017.

Today’s news adds to a growing number of initiatives to attract the brightest and best into the teaching profession, including:

• Increasing bursaries to £26,000 for all trainees with a 2:2 or higher in the highest priority subjects; physics, languages, chemistry, biology, computing, geography and classics.
• Offering a £20,000 bursary for maths trainees followed by two additional early-career payments of £5k each (£7,500 if teaching in local authority areas where teachers are most needed) in their third and fifth year of teaching, if they have taught in a state school in England since completing their teacher training course.
• Offering scholarship schemes in six subjects for 2018/19; physics, maths, languages, chemistry, computing, and geography. Successful scholars will receive £28,000 tax-free in all subjects except maths, where scholars will receive £22,000 tax-free.
• Offering bursaries for English trainees have been increased to £15,000 for all trainees with a 2:2 or higher, and bursaries in all other subjects are unchanged for 2018 to 2019.

If you haven’t already, apply to BGU today and start training in September 2018.