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Initial Teacher Training: applying for financial help

If you’re doing a full-time undergraduate ITT course, you can apply for the same package of Student Loans, grants and bursaries as other full-time students.

You can also apply for elements of this package if you’re doing a part-time or postgraduate ITT course - even though it’s usually only available to full-time undergraduate students.

Whether you’re doing an ITT course full-time or part time, or as an undergraduate or postgraduate, you can apply online for 2009/2010. If you prefer to apply on paper, download form PN1 or PR1.

• Register, login and apply online for 2009/2010

• Student finance forms and guides 2009/2010

• More on applying for student finance

More about Student Loans, grants and bursaries for ITT students

Exactly what you can get through Student Loans, grants and bursaries depends on whether your course is full-time or part time, and whether you’re doing it as an undergraduate or postgraduate.

See ‘Initial Teacher Training: Student Loans, grants and bursaries’ for an idea of how much you could get - and details of extra help that may be available if you're disabled, you have a child or adult dependant or you run into financial difficulty.

• Initial Teacher Training: Student Loans, grants and bursaries

Additional help for postgraduate ITT students

If you’re a postgraduate student, you can also apply for a training bursary from the Training and Development Agency for Schools, worth between £4,000 and £9,000. This is paid on top of the standard finance package of Student Loans, grants and bursaries.

See ‘Initial Teacher Training: extra help for postgraduate students’ for more on the TDA training bursary, and information on ‘golden hellos’ - one-off bonuses available to postgraduate students who have trained to teach certain ‘priority’ subjects at secondary level, once they’ve completed their induction year.

• Initial Teacher Training: extra help for postgraduate students

Started an undergraduate course before September 2006?

The package of financial help is different if you’re an undergraduate student who started your course before September 2006 - or you’re treated as if you did because, for example, you took a gap year in 2005/2006.

The main sources of finance for undergraduates who started before September 2006 are:

• Student Loan for Maintenance 
  
• Higher Education Grant and tuition fee grant 
  
• Fee Contribution Loan
  

Generally these Student Loans and grants aren’t available for part-time courses - but part-time ITT courses are an exception.

• Finance after your first year: full-time students who started before September 2006

Employment-based Initial Teacher Training schemes

There are also three employment-based teacher training schemes. If you follow one of these routes, you won’t have to pay any tuition fees.

You’ll be an employee rather than a student - so you’ll be paid a salary by your school, but you won’t be eligible for student finance, a TDA training bursary or a ‘golden hello’.

More about Initial Teacher Training

You can find out more about the different types of ITT course on the Training and Development Agency for Schools (TDA) website.

• Find out more about Initial Teacher Training courses Opens new window

Applying for 2008/2009?

This page contains information about the 2009/2010 academic year.

If you’re applying for 2008/2009, see ‘Finance for full-time students starting in 2008/2009’.

• Finance for full-time students starting in 2008/2009