UCL launches its first undergraduate course for aspiring mathematics teachers

For over a century, IOE has been educating teachers to serve the needs of London’s schools and, more recently, colleges and early years settings.

This year, we celebrate another milestone in IOE’s history of teacher education as we launch the Mathematics and Secondary Mathematics Education Teacher Degree Apprenticeship (TDA) BSc with Qualified Teacher Status (QTS), starting in September 2025.

This four-year Bachelor’s degree, part of the Department for Education’s TDA funded pilot, will be UCL’s first undergraduate apprenticeship. It will also become IOE’s second teacher training course, alongside the established Mathematics PGCE, dedicated to educating subject-specialist mathematics teachers for secondary schools.

Educating maths teachers has always been important to IOE, but is increasingly so given the shortages of maths teachers and the disproportionate impact this is having on pupils from economically disadvantaged backgrounds.

Our secondary mathematics teacher degree apprenticeship capitalises on IOE’s position within a leading multidisciplinary university, located in central London. Apprentices will benefit enormously from the opportunity to learn, over a period of four years, from experts in UCL’s renowned Departments of Mathematics and Statistical Science as well as from IOE and employing schools within London, while earning a salary.

As apprentices move through the programme, they will critically reflect on their own experiences of learning undergraduate mathematics at UCL and consider what this means for their practice in school. In this way, apprentices are empowered to become subject specialists who are confident in teaching mathematics up to and including A level.  

A key difference between the TDA and other routes into teaching is that it involves employment, with tuition fees covered through the apprenticeship levy. This presents a significant opportunity for UCL to widen access to the profession. Apprentices on UCL’s programme will undertake a range of roles in their employing school that will gradually support, over the four years, their readiness to join the teaching profession that IOE has championed over the past 122 years.  

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Credit: Lucy Pope for UCL IOE.