Information for employing schools: UCL’s Secondary Mathematics Teacher Degree Apprenticeship (TDA)

Contents

• About UCL’s Secondary Mathematics Teacher Degree Apprenticeship
• Why partner with UCL for the TDA?
• Duration
• Apprentices’ learning and progression
• Role profiles
• Developing specialist Mathematics teachers
• Who can be an apprentice?
• Fees and finance
• Indicative annual salary costs
• Your role as an employer
• What to do next
• UCL’s Secondary Mathematics Teacher Degree Apprenticeship programme overview

The TDA programme embodies UCL’s commitment to developing specialist subject teachers for the teaching profession. Our first cohort of apprentices start in September 2025.

This document provides employing and potential employing schools with information that is specific to UCL’s TDA. Before exploring this document further, we recommend reading the Department for Education’s (DfE) guidance published in December 2024: Offer a teacher degree apprenticeship – GOV.UK. This DfE guidance includes information for accredited initial teacher training (ITT) providers, lead partners and schools on offering the teacher degree apprenticeship (TDA). 

About UCL’s Secondary Mathematics Teacher Degree Apprenticeship

Degree apprenticeships are an employment-based form of learning which combines on-the-job learning through salaried work with off-the-job learning towards a degree qualification with a training provider.

UCL’s new Secondary Mathematics Teacher Degree Apprenticeship (The TDA) is a programme of initial teacher education that prepares apprentices for both the UCL undergraduate degree Mathematics and Secondary Mathematics Education Teacher Degree Apprenticeship BSc and qualified teacher status (QTS). The TDA is ideal for secondary schools wanting to access a new teacher recruitment pathway and play an integral part in developing specialist mathematics teachers for their setting. Apprentices will be equipped to teach up to and including A-level mathematics. 

The TDA will use the Teachers’ Standards for the knowledge, skills and behaviours (KSBs). At the end of the TDA degree and End Point Assessment, successful apprentices will meet or exceed the requirements of the Teachers’ Standards, as on other initial teacher training (ITT) programmes, and are recommended for QTS. 

Why partner with UCL for the TDA?

Choosing UCL’s TDA demonstrates your commitment to ensuring that your apprentice is rigorously prepared as a subject specialist teacher in line with your school’s needs and aspirations. 

UCL has been rated #1 in the world in the QS rankings for Education since 2014 and is one of the largest teacher education providers nationally. Apprentices will have direct access to world-leading UCL experts and their cutting-edge work in fields across Education, including mathematics, statistics, SEND and teacher education as well as an extensive library of research and wider resources. Apprentices will network with peers across IOE’s teacher education and undergraduate mathematics/statistics provision. Mentors will receive high-quality development and support to underpin their work with apprentices and to continuing enhancing their own mathematics practice. 

The UCL Institute of Education (IOE) has been a centre of teacher education excellence for over 120 years. We are committed to developing teachers as values-led, research-informed professionals. We are committed, too, to London as our home, working to improve the lives of teachers and learners across our vibrant city. Because partnership with schools, colleges and nurseries is at the heart of all of our teacher education work, you can be sure that when you partner with us for the TDA, your school will both benefit from and contribute to the wealth of knowledge, expertise, research and innovation that makes IOE who we are. This includes benefiting from close partnership working on our PGCE programmes.

Duration

The TDA is a four year programme. The first two cohorts of this programme starting in September 2025 and September 2026 are part of the Department for Education (DfE) TDA funding pilot. Schools that employ apprentices as part of the pilot will receive financial incentives to support with apprentices’ salary costs. These incentives cover the proportion of time apprentices will spend studying towards their qualification. Evidence from the pilot will be used to inform the future of the funding programme. 

Across the TDA as a whole, apprentices spend 60% of their time (average of 3 days/week) working in their employing school and 40% of their time (average of 2 days/week) undertaking off-the-job learning as directed by UCL. Off-the-job learning is more heavily weighted in the beginning years of the programme and time in school increases correspondingly each year. Indicative time allocations in our UCL TDA programme are shown below: 

Apprentices’ learning and progression

Apprentices learn in two ways: off-the-job and on-the-job.

Off-the-job learning is directed by UCL. In total, 40% of the TDA is allocated to off-the-job learning. Much of apprentices’ off-the-job learning will take place at UCL’s Bloomsbury campus, for example when attending lectures, seminars and tutorials. Some of this time will be directed independent study, which can be completed at home or elsewhere. Some will be directed activities to complete in school during off-the-job time allocation. This will include, for example, observing or meeting with peers with a specific learning focus. 

On-the-job learning takes place while the apprentice is doing their job as directed by their employing school. On-the-job learning should be constructed so that the apprentice can develop the knowledge, skills and behaviours (KSBs) that make up the apprenticeship standard. In this case, the KSBs match the Teachers’ Standards, so the work that apprentices are directed to do will, across the TDA, support their progression towards becoming a qualified teacher. At the start of the programme, each apprentice undertakes an Initial Needs Assessment. In this process apprentices undertake a KSB audit to identify an individual’s learning and support needs to enable the design of an individual training plan. Each apprentice’s training plan is agreed with the school and UCL and informs the learning with which the apprentice engages through on-and off-the-job learning. Progress is reviewed quarterly through tripartite reviews (school, UCL, apprentice) and the training plan adjusted accordingly. 

Role profiles 

As the apprentice develops their KSBs, the nature of their directed work develops accordingly. From day one, apprentices are employees who add value and flexibility to provision across your school. The exact work that apprentices do during their on-the-job learning will be informed by their training plan and regular assessment of knowledge, skills and behaviours. It is also shaped by the needs of your school, of course. The indicative role profiles below show how an apprentice might progress in their work across the duration of the TDA, assuming they are a new entrant to the profession. Where apprentices have relevant prior experience, such as being a higher level teaching assistant (HLTA) or school technician, we would expect this to be reflected in the speed of their progression. 

In Year 1, the apprentice could:

• provide targeted support 1:1 and to small groups of pupils within mathematics lessons, as directed by a class teacher
• lead withdrawal groups of selected pupils, as directed by a class teacher or head of department (HOD)
• lead revision or catch-up sessions, as directed by a class teacher or HOD
• support with departmental marking, particularly at busy assessment periods
• work beyond the mathematics department for some of their work, for example supporting pupils with special educational needs and disabilities (SEND) or mentoring pupils as part of whole-school initiatives around attendance, behaviour or attainment
• assist a year team or tutor group in pastoral time.

In Year 2, the apprentice could:

• move to independence in planning and assessing in-class and withdrawal support teaching, as well as revision and catch-up sessions
• co-teach/lead lesson episodes, collaboratively with the class teacher
• contribute to resource development and marking across the department
• mentor/coach pupils as part of whole-school priorities, for example around study skills, post-KS5 progression.

In Year 3, the apprentice could

• build up to teaching and assessing whole lessons, initially under the direction and supervision of a qualified class teacher and moving towards independence over the year (max. 60% of qualified teacher allocation, pro rata)
• provide wide-ranging support across the mathematics department (e.g. resource development/preparation, marking, lesson planning)
• work independently to support whole-school priorities beyond the mathematics department, as directed by relevant school leadership.

In Year 4, the apprentice could:

• be allocated lessons and a tutor group as an unqualified teacher, to a maximum of 80% (pro rata) of a qualified teacher’s allocation.

Developing specialist Mathematics teachers

UCL’s Secondary Mathematics TDA embodies our commitment to developing specialist subject teachers for the teaching profession. Apprentices’ off-the-job learning is structured around three core strands in line with this commitment: 

1. Mathematics Subject Expertise strand: apprentices join UCL Mathematics and Statistical Science undergraduates for six carefully selected modules from the BSc Mathematics and BSc Statistics degrees. These modules have been chosen to best develop the knowledge needed to teach KS3–KS5 mathematics curricula.
2. Mathematics Pedagogical Expertise strand: apprentices study how young people learn mathematics and develop their understanding and practice in fostering this learning. These modules are led by IOE mathematics education experts.
3. Professional Practice strand: prepares apprentices for their wider professional role, with a specific focus in year 4 of the TDA on working with pupils with SEND. These modules are led by IOE specialists in teacher education, and the module on SEND is taught by colleagues from IOE’s department of Psychology and Human Development.  

Who can be an apprentice?

Apprentices must:

• be aged over 16 and have lived in the UK for at least three years, barring a few exceptions
• may not already hold a degree with a strong mathematics focus (e.g., such as mathematics or engineering; those that do should consider a postgraduate ITT route instead)
• undergo employment checks including an enhanced Disclosure and Barring Service (DBS) check, prior to appointment.

Apprentices applying to UCL need a minimum of 3 ‘B’ grades at A level, including mathematics. Candidates offering equivalent qualifications will be considered on a case-by-case basis. We are unfortunately not able to make contextual offers for this programme. 

Employers often support apprentices who already work in their organisation. If you have a member of staff in mind, such as an HLTA or technician who meets the TDA criteria, you may be able to support them through UCL’s TDA. Equally, you may identify one or more year 13 students who would make an excellent mathematics teacher and wish to sponsor them.

If you do not already have an apprentice in mind, you can recruit for the post as you would any other vacancy in your school. Please contact TDA programme team colleagues at the following email address: mathstda@ucl.ac.uk who can provide support for this process. 

Fees and finance

There are two sets of costs associated with the TDA: 

1. Apprentice training cost: the total fee to UCL for the TDA is £27,000. Schools which pay the Apprenticeship Levy (schools with an annual salary bill of >£3 million) can use the funds from their apprenticeship account to cover this cost in full. This means that there is no additional cost to the school for apprentice training in most cases.
2. Apprentice salary: The TDA is a work-based learning programme during which apprentices must be sponsored by their employer – i.e. employed full-time in a school and released from this time to complete off-the-job learning. Schools are responsible for salaries and associated on-costs. Because apprentices are on a programme of initial teacher training, those in maintained schools must be paid at least at point 1 of the Unqualified Teachers scale (UQT1). For the duration of the TDA pilot, starting in September 2025, the DfE will subsidise this salary at 0.4 FTE, matched to UQT1 in each academic year. There is no guarantee that new cohorts starting from 2026 onwards will be subsidised in the same way. As an employment-based ITT route, apprentices are not eligible for either student finance or an ITT training bursary. 

Indicative annual salary costs

To aid your planning, we have summarised below indicative annual costings for inner/outer London using the current (2024–25) teacher salary scale. We have also included a forecast set of costs for 2025–26, assuming a 4% salary increase which would match the uplift applied for 2024–25. However, please note that these are only forecasts for 2026–27. 

These estimate figures are calculated as follows, and include the 40% DfE subsidy for the 2026 pilot cohort: 

• 0.6 FTE x (UQT1 salary, plus National Insurance at 15% over £5000, plus Teachers’ Pension contributions at 28.68%).

Acknowledging the changing balance of apprentices’ time between university-based learning and school placements (Table 1), the DfE has structured their subsidy for apprentices’ salaries to reflect this distribution. The subsidy ratios – 60/40/40/20 – align with the proportion of time apprentices spend learning off-the-job and on-the-job over the years of the TDA. As a result, schools will pay apprentices the following annual salary based on the Inner London UQT1 pay scale:

*Please note that the figures for Year 2, 3 and 4 will likely increase in line with national changes to the UQT1 salary point. 

Your role as an employer

As an employer, you partner with UCL to support your apprentice through the TDA. We are looking for partner schools which offer KS3–KS5 mathematics teaching and are committed to working with us to make the TDA a success. 

Schools have the following responsibilities to their apprentices:

• Work with UCL to recruit one or more apprentices by:
  • advertising the role on the school website and signpost applicants to DfE Apply
  • assessing and shortlisting applicants
  • conducting joint interviews with UCL
  • providing necessary employment contracts to successful applicants.
• Ensure that necessary employment checks are undertaken, including an enhanced disclosure and barring service (DBS) check.
• Provide a suitably qualified and experienced mathematics mentor to work with the apprentice in line with apprenticeship requirements and national ITT criteria. The mentor must be a qualified teacher.
• Participate in developing the apprentice in line with UCL’s TDA apprenticeship curriculum and the apprentice’s training plan.
• Participate in quarterly tripartite review meetings in line with apprenticeship requirements.
• Support the compilation of the apprentice’s Assessment Development Portfolio.
• Employ the apprentice for the full duration of the apprenticeship, on at least point 1 of the Unqualified Teachers (UQT) scale.
• Direct the apprentice’s on-the-job learning to reflect their capacity and learning needs, ensuring that they teach across the KS3–KS5 age phases within the four years of the programme.
• Support the apprentice to undertake a period of contrasting school experience in a second school during Year 3 of the programme.
• Release the apprentice from school on nominated days/week each year to complete off-the-job learning. 

What to do next

We would love to speak to you further about partnering with us for the TDA. Whether you would prefer a one-to-one chat or to attend a group webinar, please don’t hesitate to get in touch.