Routes into teaching: a plain-English guide

The first time I looked into becoming a teacher, I came away more confused than when I started. PGCE, SCITT, QTS, School Direct — it read like alphabet soup, and every website seemed to assume I already knew what half the acronyms meant.

So here’s the guide I wish someone had handed me: what each route actually involves, who it tends to suit, and the real differences between them — not just the marketing version.

The one thing every route has in common

Whichever path you take, you’re working towards Qualified Teacher Status (QTS) — the actual qualification you need to teach in a state school in England. Some routes bundle in a PGCE (Postgraduate Certificate in Education) alongside QTS; some don’t. The PGCE adds academic credit and can be useful if you might want to progress to further study later, but it isn’t strictly required to teach — QTS is the non-negotiable part.

University-led: PGCE / PGDE

This is the route most people picture: you apply to a university, study part of the time on campus, and spend the rest on placement in at least two schools. It suits people who want some structured academic grounding alongside classroom time, and a clear, well-trodden path with a lot of institutional support around you.

School-led: School Direct

Here, a school (or group of schools) leads your training, in partnership with a university or training provider. There are two flavours:

• School Direct (salaried) — you’re employed by the school from day one and paid a salary while you train. This tends to suit career-changers especially well, since it usually looks for candidates with a few years of transferable work experience already under their belt.
• School Direct (fee-based) — similar structure, but you pay training fees rather than earning a salary, more like the university-led route but based primarily in a school setting.

Either way, you’re in a real classroom from early on, rather than spending large blocks of time in lecture halls.

SCITT (School-Centred Initial Teacher Training)

Similar in spirit to School Direct — training is designed and delivered by a group of schools rather than a university — but structured as its own standalone programme. If you like the idea of learning primarily through doing, with schools rather than academics driving the syllabus, this is worth a close look.

Postgraduate Teaching Apprenticeship

The newest route, and worth knowing about if the idea of paying for training (or forgoing a salary for a year) is what’s holding you back. You’re employed by a school from the outset, earning a salary throughout, and you train “on the job” — building a portfolio of evidence and working towards an end-point assessment rather than traditional coursework. It’s still a relatively new route, so the number of places and providers is smaller than the older options, but it’s a genuinely strong fit for anyone who wants to earn from day one.

Teach First

A well-known route aimed particularly at placing trainees in schools serving disadvantaged communities, combining paid employment with training towards QTS. Worth researching directly if the mission behind it resonates with you, since it has its own distinct application process and selection criteria compared with the routes above.

Assessment Only

Worth a mention even though it applies to relatively few people: if you already have significant unqualified teaching experience, this route lets you gain QTS through assessment of that existing practice, without a full training programme. Not the likely starting point for most career-changers, but useful to know it exists.

What about the cost?

This is the bit I won’t put specific numbers on here, because bursary amounts, salary bandings, and funding rules change from one academic year to the next — and I’d rather send you to a source that’s actually kept current than bake a number into this post that’s wrong by the time you read it. The Get Into Teaching website is the official, up-to-date place to check current bursaries, salaries, and funding for your specific subject and route.

So which one’s right for you?

Honestly? There isn’t a universally “best” route — only the one that fits your finances, your learning style, and how much structure versus independence you want in that first year. If earning from day one matters most, look hardest at School Direct (salaried) or the apprenticeship route. If you’d value a more academic grounding alongside your training, the university-led PGCE route might suit better.

The route doesn’t make the teacher. It just decides what your first year looks like on the way there.

I’ll be writing in more detail about the route I chose — and why — in future posts. For now, if you’re at the “so many acronyms, so little clarity” stage, I hope this at least narrows things down a bit.