Schools taking on a teaching apprentice in a high-priority subject will receive a grant of up to £17,400, it has been announced today.

Under the new postgraduate route announced earlier this year, schools taking on teacher apprentices must meet the full costs of training as well as the apprentice’s salary, the government has said.

The government has previously said that apprentice teachers must be paid on the unqualified teacher scale. The starting rate for an unqualified teacher ranges from £16,626 outside London to £20,909 in inner London.

But employers who pay the apprenticeship levy may use up to £9,000 to cover training costs. There will also be grants for schools to cover the costs of each apprentice. The amount of the grant depends on the individual’s course and the location of the school.

Schools that do not pay the levy can access funding for training through other routes.

The teaching-apprenticeship route is similar to the current School Direct salaried route, where schools train a teacher while employing them.

Both routes give candidates the opportunity to gain qualified teacher status (QTS) at the end of three terms. But apprentice teachers will have to undertake a fourth term after gaining QTS, in order to complete their apprenticeships.

Under the apprenticeship scheme, the grants available to schools for the high-priority subjects of chemistry, classics, mathematics, languages and physics range from £12,500 to £17,400.

In other priority subjects - biology, design and technology, English, geography, history, music, religious education, and primary with maths - grants range from £7,500 to £11,100

For primary apprentices, grants range from £2,500 to £4,900.

Schools may recruit apprentices who are on courses that do not attract grant funding, but the Department for Education says that schools should be aware of the financial implications in such cases.

Apprenticeship grants are £6,500 lower than the grants received by schools for trainees on the School Direct salaried route, but the School Direct salaried grants are expected to cover training costs as well.

The exact sums were disclosed after teacher-training statistics published earlier today revealed that the government had failed to hit its teacher-training targets this year in all secondary subjects except history and PE.

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