Question to the Department for Education:

To ask the Secretary of State for Education, whether her Department has made an assessment of the potential merits of revising the requirement for a grade 4 in GCSE maths for entry into teacher training, in cases where applicants hold postgraduate qualifications in relevant subjects but did not achieve that grade in maths at school.

The department is committed to protecting the quality of teachers and the profession’s status. The initial teacher training (ITT) criteria set out the requirements for all ITT courses leading to Qualified Teacher Status (QTS). All accredited ITT providers must ensure that entrants to these courses have achieved a standard equivalent to a grade 4 in the GCSE examinations in English and mathematics (and science, for primary trainees).

The entry requirements aim to ensure that entrants to ITT have demonstrated their achievement of a minimum standard of educational attainment, and for primary trainees that they demonstrate an acceptable level of subject knowledge in the core subjects of the national curriculum.

It is the standard, not the certificate, that matters. Applicants who are otherwise suitable but have not successfully achieved a GCSE grade 4 may be given an opportunity to show that they can meet the required standard either by taking an equivalence test or by offering other evidence of attainment, which should demonstrate a similar level and breadth. It is for accredited ITT providers to decide whether an applicant’s qualification is of a standard equivalent to GCSE grade 4.