Guidance

Turing Scheme: guidance for schools, 2025 to 2026

Published 20 January 2025

Provider eligibility 

Schools are eligible to apply for Turing Scheme funding.

To be eligible to apply, schools must be:

• registered or recognised as operating in the UK or a British overseas territory
• responsible for delivering education or training to the student taking part in a placement 

You can make one application for funding to the school sector. This should include all of your intended Turing Scheme projects. 

Schools with sixth forms should make a separate application to the further education funding stream for sixth form students.

Using the services of external organisations

Eligible schools can pay for the services of third party organisations, using organisational support funding, to help them to administer Turing Scheme placements.

These organisations may not be eligible to apply to the scheme themselves.

You should include the name of these organisations in your application.

Consortium partnerships  

Schools may partner with each other and apply for funding as a consortium.  

The lead consortium coordinator:

• must submit all applications
• agrees to act as the signatory of a grant funding agreement 

A lead consortium coordinator must be based in the UK or British overseas territory and can be:

• an eligible school
• an education provider in higher education (HE) or a further education (FE) provider, who can apply for schools funding on behalf of a consortium of schools
• a multi-academy trust, on behalf of its academies or other schools
• a local authority, on behalf of a group of schools, including virtual schools
• an executive government agency
• a registered non-profit, membership organisation that represents direct education providers

Organisations who are applying as a registered non-profit membership organisation must be able to provide evidence, if requested, that at the time of applying:

• you are registered as a non-profit on sources such as the Register of Charities, Companies House or the equivalent within your devolved government or British overseas territory, or can provide articles of association which demonstrate non-profit status
• you are a representative body for members
• you interact with the wider education sector or with government to advocate for their members – for purposes other than applying for the Turing Scheme

Only students from the school sector may take part in placements organised as part of a consortium application.

Any consortium members who are not acting as coordinators should be schools participating in the scheme.

You will need to name all member organisations of the consortium in your application.

Who can go on placements 

To take part in a school placement, students must be:  

• registered with the school which sends them
• participating in primary to secondary level education
• at least 4 years old 

Students on school placements longer than 2 months must be at least 14 years old.  

Students who are not Turing Scheme-funded are not prohibited from taking part in the same placement as those who are in receipt of Turing Scheme funding.

We fund staff accompanying students on placements, where required. You will be asked to set out the number of accompanying staff required for your placements in your application. The student to staff ratio should be proportionate to the numbers and ages of students going on the placement and based on a risk assessment.

Accompanying staff are subject to the same requirements of placement length as students and apprentices. If you wish to swap one staff member for another part way through a placement, you can, but funding can only be claimed for the equivalent of one staff member.

For example, if during a 14 day placement, a member of staff needs to be switched after 7 days, a provider will receive one travel grant (to support one outbound and one return journey), and cost of living funding for 14 days in total.

Placements 

Placements must lead to outcomes in education and develop skills that are beneficial for the student’s attainment and future career prospects.

They must take place during an academic year, between 1 September 2025 and 31 August 2026.

Length of placements 

Students can take part in short-term or long-term placements. The duration of these placements includes weekends and national holidays. In all placements, students should spend most of their time working with other students to support their learning and development. Placement durations can include travel days.

Short-term placements: 3 days to 2 months

Students on short-term placements can travel with their teachers on a study placement overseas.

Long-term placements: 2 to 6 months

Students over the age of 14 can carry out a longer-term placement, attending lessons and living with a host family.

Where students can go 

Providers in British overseas territories can send students to equivalent organisations outside of their overseas territory.

Placements can take place in any destination or territory, but you must follow official foreign travel advice.

If successful, we expect you to deliver the aims and intent set out in your application, including the proportion of placements for students from disadvantaged backgrounds and with special educational or additional needs or a disability (SEND). Where this is not possible, we will expect you to tell us why.

Funding  

Turing Scheme funding is a contribution towards the costs of international educational placements. In most cases, it is provided on a per-student basis.

Funding is available for accompanying staff to chaperone students where necessary as part of safeguarding or duty of care.

How funding will be allocated

We have changed how we allocate funding to schools for 2025 to 2026.

This year schools will be able to receive funding up to £50,000 for a single application. When applying as part of a consortium they can receive up to £50,000 per school in the consortium up to a maximum of £300,000. Providers should not apply for more than this amount.

Schools’ applications will be assessed. The Department for Education (DfE) will rank schools’ applications considering a combination of their assessment score and the relative proportion of placements they intend to fund for students from disadvantaged backgrounds.

The highest ranking applications will be funded, up to the values set out above, until the full available budget is allocated.

Wherever possible, we will allocate schools the full amount they have requested, within the limits set out above.

We assess that this will be the fairest way of allocating funding and will make it easier for schools to deliver all the placements they apply for.

You should not use Turing Scheme funding towards any costs that are already covered by another source of funding, including from:

• a local authority
• devolved government

Travel funding 

DfE will provide funding towards the direct costs of travel to a placement, for one return journey between the UK or British overseas territory the provider is in and the destination the placement takes place in, including transfers.

Travel grants will be available to all students from the school sector. We will also fund the travel of accompanying staff members.

We will provide funding for each student, based on a travel grant rate for each destination. There is a list of destinations and grant rates.  

If the cost of travel is below the suggested rate, you can use the difference for travel costs in other placements.

We may request evidence of actual travel costs.

You must:

• ensure that total travel claims do not exceed the granted amount
• return any travel funding that is not spent on eligible travel activity to DfE

Contribution to living costs 

We will provide funding to help with daily living costs for each student and accompanying staff members.

The amount each student can receive depends on the group the destination is in. Groups are based on an assessment of the general cost of living in those destinations:

• group 1 – higher cost of living
• group 2 – lower cost of living

There is information on destinations in each group in the list of destinations and grant rates. For 2025 to 2026 these have been updated to include more destinations.

The funding we will provide is:

Placement duration	Group 1	Group 2
First 14 days	£55 a day	£50 a day
After 14 days	£40 a day	£35 a day

Extra funding for students from disadvantaged backgrounds  

The Turing Scheme prioritises students from disadvantaged backgrounds who might face particular challenges meeting the cost of an international placement.

Students from disadvantaged backgrounds can receive extra funding for readiness to travel.

We generally define these students as people who meet any of the following criteria:

• someone with an annual household income of £25,000 or less
• someone who has been entitled to free school meals at any point in the past 6 years because of being in a low-income household
• someone with experience of being in care or who is a care leaver – including anyone who is or has been in care, or from a looked after background, at any stage of their life
• a refugee or an asylum seeker
• someone who is receiving Universal Credit or income related benefits themselves, or lives with someone who does

Receiving free school meals in reception, year 1 and year 2 in England or primary 1 to 5 in Scotland does not automatically meet the criteria for funding for students from disadvantaged backgrounds.    

This list is not exhaustive. You can include students who do not meet these criteria but may still share similar characteristics that means they are less able to meet the cost of an international placement.

Students who are underrepresented in international placements

When you apply, we’ll also ask you to set out how you will support students from groups that are underrepresented in international study and work placements.

Underrepresented groups for the scheme include:  

• ethnic minorities, including white minorities 
• people with special educational needs or disabilities (SEND), including people with additional learning needs (ALN) in Wales and people with additional support needs (ASN) in Scotland

Some of these students may also be considered students from a disadvantaged background, if they share characteristics that mean that they are less able to meet the costs of an international placement.

We will review the eligibility criteria for students from disadvantaged backgrounds for future years of the scheme.

Readiness to travel funding 

We will provide funding to help students from disadvantaged backgrounds prepare to travel.

You must only use readiness to travel funding for: 

• passports
• visa applications and reasonable associated costs such as translated documents, travel to appointments and police certificates
• vaccines
• travel insurance
• medical certificates

You should apply using estimated actual costs associated with the items. They will be paid as actual costs rather than at set rates.

Extra funding for students with SEND

We provide extra funding for students if their school says they attend as a student with special educational or additional needs or disability, including ASN in Scotland and ALN in Wales.

You can claim support for additional costs that these students may face on international placements.

For example, we will fund visits, of up to 3 days, where staff or students may need to visit the host destination to carry out pre-placement checks. You must outline why you need the funds when you apply for the scheme.

You should apply using the estimated costs associated with students with SEND. These will be paid as actual costs, rather than based on set rates.

Organisational support 

We will provide funding to support administration and implementation costs.

We will provide £315 per student for the first 100 students, and £180 per student after that. 

You must only use organisational support funding for:

• direct staffing costs which are proportionate with running placements, including language preparation and student ambassadors involved in the scheme
• costs associated with appointing an external organisation (such as a private company) to administer and implement placements, including language preparation and paying programme fees to placement providers
• external audit fees
• room bookings for preparatory or post-placement events

You cannot use organisational support funding for any other activity, including:

• promoting or marketing the scheme
• appointing an external organisation to write your application
• IT service costs such as licenses, software, or hardware
• contingency funding for other budgets, or to cover emergencies
• staff accompanying students on placements
• staff or student visits to attend events with current or potential partners inside or outside the UK

You cannot claim organisational support for placements at overseas campuses of your own organisation.  

Direct staffing costs may be:

• short-term costs
• entire roles
• proportions of entire roles, for example if the staff member has other responsibilities not associated with running placements

You will need to record the costs incurred for staffing because of running placements directly.

Where any of the eligible organisational support costs are paid directly by students, you may give them the money, but you will need to collect receipts.

When you apply, you will need to set out how you will use organisational support funds for your project, including how procurement of external services represents value for money.

You must regularly report how much of these funds you spend and return any unused funds to DfE. 

You should keep evidence of any expenditure and be prepared to provide a detailed breakdown on request. This may include items such as: 

• receipts
• quotes
• records of how staff time has been spent