Guidance

ITT: requesting places and allocations methodology for the 2022 to 2023 academic year

Published 5 January 2022

Applies to England

Introduction

The Department for Education (DfE) is responsible for regulating the number of trainee teachers in England where training leads to the award of qualified teacher status (QTS) and early years teacher status (EYTS). We aim to support recruitment for all initial teacher training (ITT) courses to meet demand from schools and minimise an oversupply of teachers.

Recruiting for courses: allocated category

The allocated category is the category of courses that are subject to a number of places for trainees granted by DfE each academic year.

For accredited providers to recruit trainees for courses in the allocated recruitment category for the 2022 to 2023 academic year, you must have:

• requested places to recruit trainees for yourself and on behalf of the lead schools you work with
• received allocations for your courses and on behalf of the lead schools you work with

For postgraduate ITT courses this is now done through Find postgraduate teacher training courses and Apply for teacher training.

Recruiting for courses: unlimited category

For the 2022 to 2023 academic year, recruitment is unlimited for:

• postgraduate courses leading to QTS, with the exception of fee-funded PE (physical education) courses
• undergraduate ITT courses leading to QTS

You do not need to request allocations for Teaching Apprenticeship or School Direct salaried ITT courses. For further information, refer to the Postgraduate teaching apprenticeship funding manual and the School Direct salaried funding manual.

Permission to recruit trainees

Requests for places for allocated courses had to be completed between:

• Tuesday 1 June and Friday 2 July 2021 for fee-funded PE courses
• Tuesday 1 June and Friday 27 August 2021 for early years courses

For lead schools, requests for allocations were completed by the ITT accredited partner that they work with.

Existing lead schools must check with their accrediting partners that they have permission to run their course.

New lead schools must register as a lead school to be able to recruit.

We advise schools wanting to become lead schools to consider joining an existing partnership in their area. Only schools assessed by Ofsted as ‘good’ or ‘outstanding’ can register as a lead school.

The minimum partnership size is 5 partner schools or 3 for special schools. This also applies to lead schools planning to offer the Postgraduate Teaching Apprenticeship (PGTA) route.

Allocations

We review requests to recruit trainees to courses in the allocated category made during the request window. This is the period when providers are asked to submit a request for a number of trainee places for the course they wish to run the next academic year. We then grant each provider places for each allocated course - this is your allocation for that academic year.

We used the following approach to allocate trainee places in this category for the 2022 to 2023 academic year:

• fee-funded postgraduate PE courses leading to QTS: the number of places allocated for these courses was equal to the allocations issued for the 2021 to 2022 academic year for providers that have offered this course previously - providers seeking to deliver fee-funded PE courses for the first time were granted 50% of the places they requested
• early years courses leading to EYTS: all of the places requested were granted

Where to find your allocations

Postgraduate PE

The granted fee-funded PE allocations are available at Publish teacher training courses.

Select ‘Next cycle (2022 to 2023)’ and scroll to the bottom of the page, then select ‘View PE courses for 2022 to 2023’. You can then view the number of places granted to your organisation and for each of the lead schools with which you work.

Lead school allocations have been communicated to them by email, and are also available at ITT: requesting places and allocations 2022 to 2023.

Early years

Providers that requested places for early years courses leading to EYTS can view their granted allocation at ITT: requesting places and allocations 2022 to 2023.

Uplifts for fee-funded PE allocations

We expect you to recruit in line with your allocation. If you need additional places for PE trainees, you may request an uplift to the number of fee-funded PE places you’ve been allocated. Accredited bodies must make requests on behalf of the lead schools they work with.

You should not submit multiple requests throughout the cycle. Any requests should take into account likely need throughout ITT 2022.

We will review your request and you’ll be notified of the outcome by email.

There will not be any uplift process or opportunity for in-year requests for providers offering early years courses for the 2022 to 2023 academic year.

PE with EBacc (English Baccalaureate)

PE with EBacc is a postgraduate ITT route for candidates who have achieved a standard equivalent to a C grade or above at A level in an EBacc subject and wish to train to teach in this additional subject. A complete list of EBacc subjects is available in the English Baccalaureate guidance.

For the 2022 to 2023 academic year, any provider that offers a fee-funded postgraduate PE course will have permission to advertise a PE with EBacc course on Find postgraduate teacher training. You do not need to have filled your allocated fee-funded PE places before advertising.

The course must be titled ‘PE with EBacc’ and the EBacc subjects offered must be provided in the details section.

To create a PE with EBacc course:

1. Contact the Becoming a Teacher team at becomingateacher@digital.education.gov.uk and provide the:

• age range (11 to 16, 11 to 18, 14 to 19)
• course outcomes
• accredited body
• date applications will open
• course start date
  

2. Request PE with EBacc places for each candidate to whom you want to make an offer.

Requesting PE with Ebacc places

You must complete the Requesting PE with Ebacc allocations for 2022 to 2023 form to request places for each candidate you want to offer a place to. These will be reviewed and granted on a case-by-case basis.

Subject knowledge enhancement (SKE)

Candidates accepted onto a PE with EBacc course are eligible for an 8-week SKE (subject knowledge enhancement) course if the EBacc course offers this. More information about the SKEs available, and providers that offer them for ITT 2022, can be found in the Subject knowledge enhancement (SKE) course directory.

Oversupply of trainees

A higher number of trainees for a course in any category is known as oversupply. When oversupply occurs, we reserve the right to stop recruitment. This can include asking providers and lead schools to close courses on Find postgraduate teacher training courses. This means candidates will not be able to view or apply for available courses.

If you are given a ‘stop notice’ due to oversupply, you’ll be asked to close your courses. You’ll have a minimum notice period of 5 working days to process applications received before the stop notice.

We’ll provide information about the stop notice, such as the date on which providers and lead schools must stop making offers.

Applications received after the required course closure date may not be considered. This may be reconsidered in cases where a candidate has dropped out and is being replaced.

Support

If you have any queries or wish to add someone from your organisation to the allocations mailing list, email us at becomingateacher@digital.education.gov.uk.