Guidance

EYITT: requesting places and allocations methodology 2027 to 2028 academic year

Published 7 August 2026

Applies to England

This guidance sets out the methodology used to allocate places on early years initial teacher training (EYITT) courses for accredited initial teacher training (ITT) providers.

In the guidance, accredited ITT providers offering EYITT courses are referred to as accredited EYITT providers.

Introduction

Each year, the Department for Education (DfE) requires accredited providers offering EYITT courses in England to communicate how many trainees they wish to recruit onto their courses for the following academic year.

We then grant a number of allocations to each provider for each relevant EYITT course and ask providers not to recruit above that number.

For the 2027 to 2028 academic year, the allocations process is relevant only to providers wishing to offer early years courses leading to early years teacher status (EYTS).

DfE is responsible for regulating the volume of trainee early years teachers in England whose training leads to EYTS. We also aim to support recruitment for all ITT courses to meet teacher demand from schools in England, efficiently using public funds and minimising an oversupply of teachers.

To formulate this approach, DfE has:

• accounted for previous recruitment patterns
• listened to sector feedback
• analysed the information supplied by accredited EYITT providers and lead schools during the allocation request period in May 2026

DfE, or any successor organisation, may modify or amend the approach taken in future years. This guidance applies only to the 2027 to 2028 academic year.

Routes to EYTS

There are 4 routes to train as an early years teacher and be recognised as having EYTS on successful completion:

• graduate entry, where DfE allocates a training grant to providers to assist course-fee coverage for graduate trainees studying full-time – bursaries are available for eligible trainees

• graduate employment-based entry, where a training grant and employer incentive is given respectively to graduate trainees and their employer – this is a route open to graduates who:

  • have the right to work in the UK for the duration of their training
  • are working in a paid capacity in an early years setting
  • require further training to demonstrate that they have met the early years teachers’ standards
• undergraduate entry, where a tuition fee is payable by a person studying for a full-time degree of 3 or 4 years’ duration in an early childhood-related subject – funding is not available for trainees on this route, but they may be eligible to receive a tuition fee or maintenance loan
• assessment only, which is a self-funded route for experienced practitioners who may have gained qualifications overseas

Recruitment

EYITT courses leading to EYTS for the 2027 to 2028 academic year fall into the ‘allocated’ category, meaning providers are given a limited number of trainees they can recruit.

Allocated recruitment to courses is limited by the number of places DfE grants to providers. ‘Allocations’ indicate the number of places available for each provider to recruit trainees for each of their ITT courses in this category.

To recruit for early years courses leading to EYTS, accredited providers must first complete specific actions, as set out in Recruiting for courses: allocations. On the basis of national early years professional demand and providers’ requests, DfE grants an established set of allocations to providers for courses in this category. Providers must not recruit over their granted allocations, unless in-year requests are permitted or communicated otherwise by DfE.

All providers offering EYITT courses must ensure they have taken adequate steps to ensure they are ready to recruit.

Accreditation

To ensure ITT providers and lead schools can offer early years courses for the 2027 to 2028 academic year and recruit trainees for these, they must first ensure DfE has accredited them.

Following the government’s response to the 2021 ITT market review, all providers delivering ITT leading to qualified teacher status (QTS) must be accredited against certain criteria, including quality requirements. Passing this accreditation process is a mandatory requirement to deliver EYITT courses. A list of accredited ITT providers is available.

Providers may want to consider using the initial teacher training and early career framework when developing their programme to mirror the same standards across their offer.

All EYITT courses must enable trainee teachers to meet the early years teachers’ standards to be able to lead to EYTS.

As part of DfE’s approach to quality assurance, from the 2026 to 2027 academic year, Ofsted will inspect EYITT delivery for all accredited providers every 4 years under the initial teacher training and early career framework.

Lead settings

Existing lead settings must ensure they have the ability to recruit with the EYITT provider they partner with. New lead settings should contact becomingateacher@digital.education.gov.uk for guidance on recruiting.

We advise that settings that wish to become a lead setting first consider joining an existing partnership in their area. The minimum partnership size is 5 partner settings, or 3 for special schools.

Allocations

To recruit trainees for courses in the allocated recruitment category for the 2027 to 2028 academic year, accredited providers had to:

• express an interest in delivering EYITT if they had not delivered it previously by contacting EYITT allocations at eyitt.ALLOCATIONS@education.gov.uk
• complete a survey sent to all EYITT providers from the EYITT team by 22 May 2026
• receive allocations

Permission

The process to request permission to recruit for courses in the ‘allocated’ category for the 2027 to 2028 academic year had to be completed by all accredited EYITT providers by 22 May 2026.

Accredited EYITT providers were instructed to inform DfE of their recruitment figures for each of their courses in the allocated recruitment category for the 2027 to 2028 academic year.

Partnerships were able to decide for themselves whether lead setting requests were completed by the lead setting or the EYITT provider, as long as the EYITT provider submitted the request to DfE.

The request to offer this course and the recruitment figures had to be submitted through a Microsoft Form. We emailed the form to all accredited EYITT providers.

Recruitment figures

When providers requested permission to recruit for courses in the ‘allocated’ recruitment category, they were required to specify their recruitment figures for their EYITT courses for the 2027 to 2028 academic year by route. DfE requires this information to understand demand and capacity in the system nationally.

In considering these figures, accredited EYITT providers and lead settings should have accounted for their:

• most recent cohort sizes
• recent recruitment patterns
• current or anticipated growth in partnership arrangements
• recent trends in applicant route preferences
• a realistic assessment of employment need in the local area.

This applies to the capacity for training that their partnerships can accommodate and their ability to attract high-quality trainees who will make excellent teachers. Accredited EYITT providers and lead settings have a responsibility to ensure that DfE funding, data and reporting requirements are met and are, therefore, responsible for submitting accurate information on the capacity of their training programmes. Any errors in submission are the sole responsibility of the accredited EYITT provider or lead setting. Requests to amend or correct data after the deadline will only be considered in exceptional circumstances.

Allocations for the 2027 to 2028 academic year

The policy paper Giving every child the best start in life sets out a commitment to increase the number of early years teachers, with the long-term aim of there being an early years teacher in every nursery setting.

One of the ways that DfE is intending to do this is to significantly increase the number of funded training places on EYITT courses over 3 years, aiming to more than double the number of places by 2028.

In response to strong demand, we can confirm that we were able to allocate more places than originally planned for the 2027 to 2028 academic year. This uplift reflects our shared commitment to growing EYITT as a route to increasing the number of teachers in the early years workforce.

Since the 2026 to 2027 academic year, we have undertaken significant work to refine the allocations process based on analytical forecasts of attrition rates, to enable the allocation of as many places as possible each financial year.

It is unlikely that we will be offering additional allocations rounds during the year, as happened before the 2026 to 2027 academic year.

Opening and closing courses

Accredited EYITT providers are able to open their courses to applicants once their allocations have been granted and to start recruiting trainees.

They are advised to close their courses when they run out of places for applicants. They may want to reopen these courses when they have newly freed places, such as if a candidate withdraws their accepted offer.

Data accuracy

Accredited ITT providers who report inaccurate data may be impacted in their permission to recruit, or in their granted allocations in subsequent years. Following the issue of ITT criteria and supporting advice, failure to comply with DfE data requirements may lead to withdrawal of accreditation.