We are training the next generation of Co-op Teachers. Find out what help is available to train with us. You could be entitled to a tax-free bursary and scholarship.

If you want to chat about your options, get in touch with our Train to Teach team – teachertraining@coopacademies.co.uk.

Postgraduate bursaries

For 2025 to 2026, the DfE are offering bursaries of:

• £29,000 in Chemistry, Computing, Mathematics and Physics
• £26,000 in Biology, Design & Technology, Geography and Languages 
• £10,000 in Art & Design, Music and RE
• £5,000 in English

Applicants may be eligible for a bursary if they have a 1st, 2:1, 2:2, PhD or Master's.

Scholarships

The DfE are offering scholarships of:

• £31,000 in Chemistry, Computing, Mathematics and Physics
• £28,000 in French, German and Spanish

Scholarships are usually available to applicants with a 1st, 2:1, Master’s or PhD, though in exceptional circumstances they may be awarded to a graduate with a 2:2 and significant relevant experience.

Scholarships also come with a package of additional benefits from the relevant scholarship body:

• Tax-free scholarship
• Membership to the professional body
• Subject specialist events and webinars held by professional bodies
• Online and face-to-face workshops across the country
• Subject specialist mentors and coaching
• Community of scholars (ex-scholars, teachers, subject leaders)
• Access to classroom resources
• Continuing professional development (CPD) and networking events during ITT year and alumni

Scholarships are applied for separately to ITT and only awarded to high calibre students who pass a robust application and interview process in one of the specialist subject areas. Scholarships are awarded instead of a bursary. Scholarship applicants should apply to the relevant scholarship body.

For full details, please visit Get Into Teaching.

Our ITT programme is accredited by Bright Futures SCITT.

The Bright Futures SCITT is a dynamic, high-quality teacher training provider who act as Accredited Provider for our teacher training programmes in Early Years, Primary and Secondary. They are part of the Bright Futures Teaching School Hub, one of the UKs 87 centres of excellence for teacher training and development.

Their work supports schools and trusts by investing in their workforce to grow, recruit, develop and retain the very best teachers, support staff and leaders.

Judged by Ofsted as ‘Good’, Bright Futures SCITT has a proven track record of providing outstanding teacher training for over 10 years.

We partner with The University of Derby for our PGCE element.

They strive for excellence through their high expectations from recruitment, through training, and into employment to empower the future generations of teachers. The University of Derby is rated GOLD in the recent Teaching Excellence Framework (TEF) outcomes released in September 2023, placing the university in the top 20% of universities in the country.

Our PGCE programme is a blended model with the university providing a lecturer team who comes to Manchester to host face-to-face sessions at the start of each of the three modules.  

We work with the university to produce teachers who are:

• Competent and confident professionals who learn from research, direct experience, their peers, and other sources of knowledge;
• Epistemic agents, acting as independent thinkers, who learn to search for theories and research that can underpin, challenge or illuminate their practice. Our trainees learn to analyse and interrogate evidence and arguments, drawing critically and self-critically from a wide range of evidence to make informed decisions in the course of their practice;
• Able to engage in inquiry-rich practice and are encouraged to be intellectually curious about their work with the capacity to be innovative, creative, and receptive to new ideas;
• Responsible professionals who embody high standards of professional ethics, who act with integrity and recognise the social responsibilities of education, working towards a socially just and sustainable world

Our academies are located across the North of England within Greater Manchester, West Yorkshire, Merseyside, Stoke & Staffordshire serving very diverse communities.

We know the difference co-operation can make to these communities, which is why the values of co-operation, which are shared throughout the world, are driven in all our academies, but with our own unique way of articulating them to young people!

These are our ‘Ways of Being Co-op’. Whatever we do, they are the way that we do it.

Find our academies here

As a Lead Partner with Bright Futures SCITT and to ensure consistency across the partnership, our ITT Policies are centralised and can be found here.

The use of Artificial Intelligence and Initial Teacher Training (ITT) 

All written responses will be run through an AI Detector as part of our short-listing process.

The Department of Education (DfE) outlines clear compliance criteria to which all accredited ITT Providers must adhere. In the criteria, there is a section that focusses on ‘Intellectual and academic capabilities’ which states that all candidates need to demonstrate their competence regarding their ‘fundamental proficiency in English’. ITT statutory guidance 2024 to 2025 September 2024 update (publishing.service.gov.uk)

As part of our proficiency checks, Co-op Academies Trust and Bright Futures SCITT assess a candidate’s proficiency in written English through the submission of a personal statement at application (via DfE Apply), and a written task which takes place after the interview.

Please note that pre-interview, all personal statements will be run through an AI Detector, therefore we strongly encourage all candidates to write using their own words.

We reserve the right not to progress an application if the use of AI is detected.

At interview, if the use of AI is detected in the written task, the submission will be discounted, and candidates will be offered a final opportunity to submit one further piece written in their own words. These checks are critical so that ITT Providers have evidence that all candidates have a high level of literacy skills.