SCITT Tuition-Fee QTS
The Tuition-Fee QTS with PGCE course leads to the award of Qualified Teacher Status (QTS) at the end of the 10-month course (September to June). QTS is required to be employed and paid on the main teacher pay scale in a state school in England and Wales. It is offered for both primary (ages 5-11) and secondary (ages 11-16 or 14-19) in a range of subjects. If you also wish to receive a PGCE qualification, then you should consider our QTS with PGCE course.
The Tommy Flowers SCITT is the only provider offering a tax-free bursary in every tuition-fee course.
Bursaries for ALL courses, including primary
Features of the SCITT Tuition-Fee QTS route:
- Award of Qualified Teacher Status
- Primary or Secondary
- All subjects and age phases are eligible for generous bursaries or scholarships
- £9,050 tuition fees (2027-28)
- Student loan available to cover fees and maintenance (repayable when employed)
- Two placements within our local partnership schools
- Support of an experienced mentor
- Gradual increase of teaching hours throughout the year
- Weekly professional studies and subject studies training
Applications for a September 2027 start are now open!
Our SCITT tuition-fee courses devote the majority of training time to school experiences. You will learn from outstanding practitioners, including your personal mentor to become a “confident, reflective teacher” (Ofsted, 2023).
Running from September to June, you will have two contrasting placements, ensuring you gain experience across the age range in which you are training to teach. In addition, you will visit ‘specialist’ schools, developing skills specific to your needs. This enables you to experience a range of educational approaches and opportunities to work with the unique, dynamic and diverse communities Milton Keynes and the surrounding areas have to offer.
From day 1, you will be regarded as a teacher in your school. However, your teaching timetable will develop and grow to suit your own experience, pace and progress. “Well-being is prioritised every step of the way” (Ofsted, 2023). Typically, trainees observe across their primary schools for the first two weeks, before starting to take parts of lessons, team teaching with their mentor and then whole lessons. By the end of the course, you will be the lead teacher for 80% of the timetable.
One day per week (Fridays for primary; Monday afternoons and Friday afternoons for secondary) are dedicated to training. You will join your fellow trainees at St. Paul’s Catholic School for a broad programme of training that Ofsted (2023) described as “second to none”. Underpinned by the most up-to-date and credible research, our ambitious training programme follows two strands:
Professional studies
During these sessions, you will explore the skills of becoming an outstanding teacher through the first five of our curriculum areas:
- Pedagogy, including how children learn, and planning
- Managing pupil behaviour and maintaining high expectations
- Adaptive teaching, including SEND, EAL, disadvantage, mental health and more able
- Assessment of pupils
- Professional behaviours, statutory expectations and wellbeing
Subject studies
Our sixth curriculum area is Subject and curriculum knowledge.
In primary, these sessions, led by subject experts from across the region, develop your understanding of the most effective strategies for teaching all subjects taught at primary level, equipping you to teach across the full age range from Year 1 to Year 6.
For secondary, you will join other trainees in your subject and your dedicated subject tutors to explore the specific knowledge and strategies required to teach your subject.
Fees and finance
Fees for the SCITT Tuition-fee QTS courses are £9,050 for 2027-28. Applicants to this course may be eligible for a wide range of financial support:
Tuition-fee loans
Most candidates are eligible for a tuition-fee loan from Student Finance England which is repayable once you are earning above the threshold.
Bursaries and scholarships
Bursaries or scholarships – up to £31,000, tax-free – are available for some secondary courses depending on your subject and degree. Applicants may be eligible for a bursary if they have a 1st, 2:1, 2:2, Master’s degree or PhD. Bursaries for 2026-27 are as follows:
- £29,000 in chemistry, computing, mathematics and physics
- £20,000 in design and technology and languages
- £5,000 in biology and geography
Scholarships are usually available to applicants with a 1st, 2:1 Master’s degree or PhD. Visit Get Into Teaching for further details.
Tommy Flowers SCITT bursary
The Tommy Flowers SCITT offers a £3,000 tax-free bursary for primary and all secondary courses (art, business, drama, English, history, music, PE, RE and social sciences) that are not eligible for the Government bursary. The Tommy Flowers SCITT is the only provider offering this innovative bursary.
- 10 monthly instalments of £300
- Tax-free
- In addition to your student loan or maintenance loan
Please watch this video for further details.
Maintenance loans
Depending on your personal financial circumstances, you may also be eligible for a maintenance loan to contribute towards your costs of living. This is means-tested and will be completely individualised to each applicant. Visit Student Finance England for more details of your eligibility.
Entry requirements
All applicants for initial teacher training need to meet the following entry requirements.
Degree
You must hold a bachelor’s degree with honours class 2.2 or above from a UK Higher Education Institution (HEI), or an equivalent qualification. The UK National Information Centre (UK ENIC) or our administrators can provide advice on the equivalence of overseas qualifications. For applicants to a secondary course, your degree should be in or closely related to the subject you wish to train to teach. Should your degree not be in the subject for which you are applying to teach, you will require a minimum of a grade B at A level in that subject in order to meet the requirement for recommendation to a Subject Knowledge Enhancement course. If you are in your final year of completing your degree, you can still apply to us – successfully gaining your degree will become a condition of any offer you receive.
GCSEs
English (Language or Literature) and Maths GCSE or equivalent qualifications at grade C/4 or above. For primary candidates, a Science GCSE or equivalent is also required at grade C/4 or above. A full list of accepted GCSE equivalent qualifications can be found here. We also accept equivalency tests from Equivalency Testing or A Star Equivalency. Please contact us if you are unsure if your qualifications are equivalent or to discuss your options.
Applying for the SCITT Tuition-fee QTS course
All applications for our teacher training programmes (with the exception of the Assessment Only route) must be made online using the Government’s Apply for Teacher Training portal. Applications for a 2027 start are now open.
Once your application has been submitted, it will be received by our team who will check the entry requirements have been met and that the application meets a high standard of English. If your relevant qualifications are from overseas, please ensure you have UK ENIC in place when you apply and add the ENIC certificate number to your application. You may then be invited to an interview day.
Once a conditional offer has been made, two references (professional and academic) will be required from the applicant.
Unfortunately, we are unable to sponsor candidates from overseas who require a VISA to study or work in the UK.
Course Codes
Please use the provider code 1YK to apply to the Tommy Flowers SCITT, along with the following course codes for the SCITT Tuition-fee programmes:
Primary:
Q414 Primary (5-11)
For a Primary programme for children aged 3-7, please visit Bedgrove Infant School Teacher Training
Secondary:
Z963 Art and Design (11-16)
H685 Biology (11-16)
T440 Business Studies (14-19)
R296 Chemistry (11-16)
G527 Computing (11-16)
Z691 Design and Technology (11-16)
M556 Drama (11-16)
F314 English (11-16)
G106 Geography (11-16)
Z434 History (11-16)
N432 Mathematics (11-16)
N452 Modern Foreign Languages (11-16)
J457 Music (11-16)
G694 Physical Education (11-16)
P754 Physics (11-16)
Q546 Religious Education (11-16)
G181 Social Sciences (14-19)
Structure and support
Training to become a teacher is exhilarating but also demanding. We believe that the wellbeing of trainees is paramount and so a wide range of support is available.
School Mentor
Your School Mentor is the person you will see every day. They are an exceptional teacher who will act as a critical friend. Your mentor will support you in planning lessons, observe you and provide feedback on your strengths, progress and next steps and will have a dedicated weekly mentor meeting to help you develop further. “Mentors are highly skilled at helping trainees to identify for themselves what they need to work on next” (Ofsted, 2023).
Professional Tutor
The Professional Tutor (a senior leader within your placement school), is responsible for teacher training within the school. They will support the School Mentor and yourself, ensure that you are getting a broad experience and a range of opportunities. “All stakeholders are fully invested in the partnership” (Ofsted, 2023).
Partnership Manager and Lead Mentor
You will see your Partnership Manager and Lead Mentors weekly at training sessions. Their role is to organise and co-ordinate the whole programme but they are also there to provide advice and support where required. They will complete termly Lead Mentor visits to your schools and validate your assessments.
Peer support
Tommy Flowers SCITT trainees often make friends for life through the course. At the weekly training sessions, plenty of opportunities are given for trainees to share, talk through ideas and work collaboratively.
Overseas Applicants
Applicants who are not UK or Irish nationals will need to demonstrate that they have the right to live and study in the UK before their applications can be processed. You will be asked to send evidence of one of the following:
- Indefinite Leave to Remain Under the EU Settlement Scheme (known as Settled Status) e.g. email confirming settled or pre-settled status for EU citizens
- Indefinite Leave to Remain e.g. a stamp in your passport or a letter from the Home Office. You could also have a ‘vignette’ (sticker) or a biometric residence permit.
- UK Permanent Residence Document e.g. a certificate inside your blue ‘residence documentation’ booklet (or pink if you’re a Swiss national), a certificate inside your passport, a biometric residence card confirming permanent residence (only if you’re not an EU, EEA or Swiss citizen)
If you have a Graduate visa, a Youth Mobility Scheme visa, a Family visa or UK Ancestry visa, you are encouraged to contact us prior to applying in order to check your eligibility. We are unfortunately unable to sponsor Student visas and our courses are not eligible for Skilled Worker visas.
Irish nationals can continue to enter, work and study in the UK under the Common Travel Area as they could previously.
Further information can be found on the Get Into Teaching website for overseas graduates.
Assessment
The Tommy Flowers SCITT will formatively review your progress throughout the course, with a summative assessment against our Curriculum in June. By meeting the Tommy Flowers SCITT curriculum, you will have demonstrated that you have met each of the Teachers’ Standards and can therefore be awarded Qualified Teacher Status (QTS). Supporting material for your reviews include:
Online portfolio
Your online portfolio will include a sample of lesson plans, resources, observations and evaluations from your teaching throughout the year. It will support you in talking about how you have developed as a teacher across the course. Weekly mentor meetings and tasks related to your learning will be stored in the portfolio
Projects
These projects enable you to develop your expertise in key areas of the Tommy Flowers SCITT curriculum, including planning sequenced lessons, early reading and phonics (primary), how children learn in your subject (secondary) and developing your knowledge of an area of SEND.
The interview process
If called to one of our selection days, you will be sent full information via email. The selection days are an opportunity for us to get to know you but also for you to find out more about us and the course.
The selection day includes the following:
- A 20 minute task with a group of 8 children
- Literacy task
- An interview
The selection process will usually last about 2 hours. Further information and resources for this will be sent out when you are offered an interview and we are always willing to answer any questions you may have before the selection day.
