APPLY FOR UNITED TEACHING

Applications for September 2019 are now open! Just fill in our short Eligibility Form - it only takes 10 minutes and helps us to assess whether you meet our criteria.

The Application Process

Before applying for United Teaching, please check that your chosen subject is available. You check if you meet our requirements by taking our quiz.

There are three stages to our application:

Complete our application form
Assessment process
Offer

Step 1: Eligibility Form

To start your application with us simply complete our short eligibility form. Our team will assess your initial application based on the information provided, and if you meet our criteria, we will invite you to our interview process straight away.

You will still be required to submit an application via UCAS to formally accept your teacher training place and we can help you with this.

Step 2: Assessment Process

If you are shortlisted, you will be invited to attend the first stage of our assessment process, which will at one of our regional assessment centres. Upon completion of the first assessment day, you will be advised whether you were successful, and invited to a second day. Stage two assessments are usually held in the week following stage one and are held in a school that you’ve expressed an interest to teach in.

It’s a rigorous process, but we hope that means we recruit trainee teachers with great potential and that you also build a much deeper understanding of both the course and profession, from the outset of your career with us.

The assessment process has two stages, and are comprised of a range of practical activities and interviews, including:

A formal interview with members of the United Teaching team and senior teachers. This will explore your motivation to teach, your experience in education or working with young people and your personal values with regard to teaching;
A discussion with a student panel. This will provide the opportunity for you to meet some of our students, drawn from a range of year groups, and find out more about our schools from their perspective;
A written ‘data assessment task’ focused on school-based information that will enable us to establish how you handle student data and your ability to make written arguments in an organised and rational manner. The information for this test is provided on the day and lasts 20 minutes;
A group debate exercise with other candidates about a relevant topic. The information you need is provided for you on the day. Having an awareness of key current educational matters is useful for this activity; and
A tour of the school and an introduction to the programme;

If you are successful on stage one you will be short-listed for the second stage of assessment. This is the opportunity to teach a prepared 30-minutes observed lesson to a class of students at the placement school of your choice within the group. This is followed by a reflective discussion on your lesson with the observer (usually a senior teacher or head of department in the school). What went well and how could you have made it even better? Your lesson topic, year group and the context for the children in your class will be shared with you in advance.

Step 3: Offer

You'll be notified within 48 hours of your assessment day whether you've been successful or not, subject to references. Your offer will be conditional on you:

Gaining your degree (if you haven't already)
Having GCSE Maths and English (and Science for primary education)
Having passed your skills tests
Having clear identity and DBS checks

We endeavour to place you in your first choice of school. If this is not possible we will seek alternatives that work for you.

A Note About UCAS

In England, you are required to submit an application via UCAS to formally accept your teacher training place. However, as we do not require this to consider your application, you can complete it at the very beginning of the process or once we have made you an offer to provide your references.

If you are applying to multiple training providers and would like to submit your UCAS form first, we will gladly accept this in place of your eligibility form and follow the same assessment process. Please note, that should you have offers from multiple providers placed through UCAS, you must accept your chosen place within ten days of receiving your final offer.

You can download our UCAS codes here.