A teacher recruitment programme for career changers has secured its immediate future at the eleventh hour by getting almost £1 million in donations after the Department for Education axed its funding earlier this year, Tes can reveal.

The Now Teach charity, which runs the recruitment scheme of the same name, warned earlier this year that the funding cut meant it would have to stop taking on new recruits after September.

However, thanks to donations from philanthropists, trusts and foundations, the programme will be able to continue recruiting career changers for at least another year, with applications for autumn 2025 now open, Tes can reveal.

Now Teach ‘should get government funding’

The donors named by Now Teach include The Hg Foundation, which aims to help under-represented groups to access tech jobs and lists Labour’s school standards adviser, Sir Kevan Collins, as a trustee on its website.

Other donors include the Rothermere Foundation, which provides grants to organisations helping children and young people and is chaired by media boss Viscount Rothermere, as well as individuals such as Dr Tony Trapp, founder of renewable energy company Osbit Ltd.

Now Teach said these charities and individuals had come to its “rescue”.

But Lucy Kellaway, a co-founder of Now Teach, said that funding the scheme “should not be left to philanthropists”.

She added that the raising of funds in “such a short amount of time” showed a short-sightedness of the DfE under the previous administration.

The axing of the scheme drew criticism when it was announced in April, with multi-academy trust leaders labelling the decision “extraordinary”.

The charity, which has received £4.47 million in DfE funding since 2022, finds and supports career changers from a range of professions, providing them with a network of support in the teaching world.

Now Teach told Tes earlier this year that the cost of supporting each recruit over three years was £8,500. Of that figure, the government funded £7,000, with the rest being funded by Now Teach itself via philanthropists.

Thanks to the new funding, Now Teach said that the programme will be able to recruit 250 teachers for September 2025.

This is an increase on the 265 recruits who started this September under the last round of DfE funding, against a target of 200.

Now Teach said that applicants can register now for an autumn 2025 start.

• Background: MAT leaders denounce “extraordinary” axing of Now Teach
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• Teacher pay scales 2024-25: What will your salary look like?

Government data shows that the recruitment of teacher trainees aged 40 or over rose by 14 per cent year-on-year for 2023-24, despite numbers remaining stable or falling across all other age categories.

Despite the funding boost, Now Teach said that a substantial “DfE-shaped” income gap remains going forward, adding that it plans to increase efficiencies and reduce costs whilst introducing a more flexible programme with tighter entry criteria.

However, earlier this year Ms Kellaway said there had been a “very positive response from the Labour Party”, describing the reaction as “promising”.

Now Teach said that a meeting with the Labour government is being arranged for next term.

Melanie Renowden, chief executive of the National Institute of Teaching, said that Now Teach “has been pivotal in providing a supportive professional network and useful resources for our trainees as they start their teaching journey”.

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