To be eligible for the TMP, organisations must meet the following criteria which will be confirmed during the expression of interest submission:
In order to be eligible for the programme , public and private Further Education providers (excluding the exemptions listed below) must hold one of the following approved contracts directly with the Department for Education (DfE):
Apprenticeship including carry-in, non-levy and levy including apprenticeship service agreements
16 to 19 education (excluding school sixth forms, academy sixth forms, URCs, School Studios and Academy 16-19 colleges)
Adult Skills Fund (excluding devolved ASF)
Advanced Learner Loans Facility & Bursary
Providers must have an allocated UKPRN number.
Providers must be located in England and offer training in England.
Mentors engaging on the TMP must be directly mentoring FE teachers who are defined as ECT (those who have been teaching for three years or less).
Mentors must be contracted directly by providers (this includes permanent full-time and part-time positions, sessional and those on 0-hour contracts). Mentors who are mentoring ECTs from sub-contracted organisations will be considered on a case-by-case basis with the DfE.
Providers will need to confirm that if they apply for a grant that this will not be used for any other DfE funded programmes or subscriptions to avoid duplicate and overlaps in funding.
As part of the application stage, providers will need to confirm whether they wish to apply for a grant for mentors who will undertake the programme. To assess the suitability of the grant, providers will be required to submit an initial budget outline with their application.
Applications from different providers who are part of the same college group will be accepted.
Mentors cannot take part in a programme they have previously partially or fully completed, unless approved by the DfE for exceptional circumstances. For example, a mentor cannot apply for the ‘Mentoring Skills for New Mentors’ programme if they have undertaken this in a previous year. They can, however, apply for the Advanced programme.
If you are accepted onto the programme, please note that your organisations DfE funding will be checked again at the cohort start date. If you do not still have evidence of a valid DfE funding contract containing funding for at least one of the funding streams stated at point 1 you may be required to withdraw from the programme.
Please note – you cannot apply if you are a school/school sixth form, academy, studio school or university technical college even if you’re in receipt of one or more of these funding streams. Sixth from colleges that have converted to academy status or are planning to do so in the 2026 to 2027 academic year are also not eligible to apply for the TMP.
The TMP eligibility criteria is subject to review. Cognition Learning Group and the DfE
reserve the right to update and or amend the eligibility criteria at any point.
Please confirm that you meet the above eligibility criteria:
