Guidance

Turing Scheme: guidance for schools, 2026 to 2027

Published 20 January 2026

Provider eligibility 

Schools are eligible to apply for Turing Scheme funding.

To be eligible to apply, schools must be:

• registered or recognised as operating in the UK or a British overseas territory
• responsible for delivering education or training to the student taking part in a placement

You can only make one application for funding to the schools funding stream. This should include all of your intended Turing Scheme placements which are eligible for schools Turing Scheme funding. 

For academic year 2026 to 2027, schools with an embedded sixth form can apply to the schools funding stream for projects that will provide placements for a mix of sixth form and younger school year groups.

If a placement within your project involves only sixth form students, you must apply to the further education (FE) funding stream for that placement. This means you may have to make an application to the schools funding stream and FE funding stream for the same project. Applications to the schools stream for projects that involve placements for only sixth form students will be rejected in their entirety. You’ll need to submit a new application to the FE funding stream and the schools funding stream. We cannot accept late applications after the deadline.

In Scotland, as there is no distinct sixth form stage, schools can apply to the schools stream for all students.

Using the services of external organisations

Eligible schools can pay for the services of third party organisations, using organisational support funding, to help them to administer Turing Scheme placements.

These organisations may not be eligible to apply to the scheme themselves.

You cannot use Turing Scheme funding to pay an external organisation to make an application on your behalf.

You should include the name of these organisations in your application.

For academic year 2026 to 2027, you will also need to tell us how you will ensure cost-effectiveness. This includes justifying subcontractor use.

Consortium partnerships  

Schools may partner with each other and apply for funding as a consortium.  

The lead consortium coordinator:

• must submit all applications
• agrees to act as the signatory of a grant funding agreement

A lead consortium coordinator must be based in the UK or British overseas territory and can be:

• an eligible school
• a sixth form if partnering with a school as part of placement involving sixth formers and younger students
• an education provider in higher education (HE) or an FE provider, who can apply for schools funding on behalf of a consortium of schools
• a multi-academy trust, on behalf of its academies or other schools
• a local authority, on behalf of a group of schools, including virtual schools
• an executive government agency
• a registered non-profit, membership organisation that represents direct education providers

Organisations who are applying as a registered non-profit membership organisation must be able to provide evidence, if requested, that at the time of applying:

• you are registered as a non-profit on sources such as the Register of Charities, Companies House or the equivalent within your devolved government or British overseas territory, or can provide articles of association which demonstrate non-profit status
• you are a representative body for members
• you interact with the wider education sector or with government to advocate for their members – for purposes other than applying for the Turing Scheme

The same student eligibility rules apply to consortiums as to providers applying on their own. This means that consortiums applying to the schools funding stream can only include sixth form students if they are part of a placement which also includes younger students. If any placement within the project involves only sixth form students, you must apply to the FE funding stream for that placement. This does not apply to schools in Scotland.

Any consortium members who are not acting as coordinators should be schools participating in the scheme.

You will need to name all member organisations of the consortium in your application.

Who can go on placements 

To take part in a school placement, students must be:  

• registered with the school which sends them
• participating in primary to secondary level education (or sixth form level education in the limited circumstances specified below)
• at least 4 years old

Students on school placements longer than 2 months must be at least 14 years old.  

Sixth form students at a school with an embedded sixth form can attend a placement funded through the schools funding stream but only when the trip also includes students from younger year groups. In Scotland, as there is no distinct sixth form stage, schools can apply to the schools funding stream for all students.

Students who are not Turing Scheme funded are not prohibited from taking part in the same placement as those who are in receipt of Turing Scheme funding.

We fund staff accompanying students on placements, where required. You will be asked to set out the number of accompanying staff required for your placements in your application. The student to staff ratio should be proportionate to the numbers and ages of students going on the placement and based on a risk assessment.

Accompanying staff are subject to the same requirements of placement length as students and apprentices. If you wish to swap one staff member for another part way through a placement, you can, but funding can only be claimed for the equivalent of one staff member.

For example, if during a 14 day placement, a member of staff needs to be switched after 7 days, a provider will receive one travel grant (to support one outbound and one return journey), and cost of living funding for 14 days in total.

Placements 

Placements must lead to enhanced transferable skills that are beneficial for the student’s life and future career prospects.

They must take place during an academic year, between 1 September 2026 and 31 August 2027.

Length of placements 

Students can take part in short-term or long-term placements. The duration of these placements includes weekends and national holidays. In all placements, students should spend most of their time working with other students to support their learning and development. Placement durations can include travel days.

Short-term placements: 3 days to 2 months

Students on short-term placements can travel with their teachers on a study placement overseas.

Long-term placements: 2 to 6 months

Students over the age of 14 can carry out a longer-term placement, attending lessons and living with a host family.

Where students can go        

Providers in British overseas territories can send students to equivalent organisations outside of their overseas territory.

Placements can take place in any destination or territory, but you must follow official foreign travel advice. When planning your placements you should consider whether this advice is likely to change.

From academic year 2026 to 2027, providers must explain in their application why they have chosen their destination(s). This explanation must cover student outcomes, strengthening international partnerships, value for money and environmental impact.

Providers can apply on the basis of provisionally planned placements, where host organisations may not be fully confirmed.

In some cases placement destinations may need to change after you are awarded funding. However, we expect you to deliver the aims and intent set out in your application, including the proportion of placements for students from disadvantaged backgrounds. Where this is not possible, we will expect you to tell us why. We also expect you to prioritise placements for students with special educational needs and disabilities (SEND), additional learning needs (ALN) and additional support needs (ASN). We may withhold funding and ask you to resubmit your plan if we consider that you have not made appropriate efforts to deliver the intent set out in the application.

Turing Scheme funding cannot be used towards the activities of Confucius Institutes.

Funding  

Turing Scheme funding is a contribution towards the costs of international educational placements. In most cases, it is provided on a per-student basis.

Funding is available for accompanying staff to chaperone students where necessary as part of safeguarding or duty of care.

How funding will be allocated

Schools can receive funding up to £50,000 for a single application. When applying as part of a consortium they can receive up to £50,000 per school in the consortium up to a maximum of £300,000. Providers should not apply for more than this amount.

Schools’ applications will be assessed by an independent assessor. You can find the full application criteria.

The Department for Education (DfE) will then rank schools’ applications using a weighted combination of their assessment score and the relative proportion of placements they intend to fund for students from disadvantaged backgrounds.

Providers with a high application score and a high proportion of disadvantaged students are most likely to be successful in securing funding. We assess that this will be the fairest way of allocating funding by prioritising high quality applications with the highest proportion of students from disadvantaged backgrounds.

If providers have received Turing Scheme funding in previous years, we may also consider whether the provider has persistently underspent their previously allocated funding. This may be taken into account when DfE ranks the applications and affect the likelihood of being awarded Turing Scheme funding, or how much the applicant is awarded.

The highest ranking applications will be allocated funding by DfE, up to the values set out above, until the full available budget is allocated. Wherever possible, we will allocate schools the full amount they have requested, within the limits set out above. This will make it easier for schools to deliver all the placements they apply for.

Successful providers must deliver placements for the proportion of disadvantaged students they set out in the application as a condition of the Grant Funding Agreement.

You should not use Turing Scheme funding towards any costs that are already covered by another source of funding, including from:

• a local authority
• devolved government

Travel funding 

DfE will provide funding towards the direct costs of travel to a placement, for one return journey between the UK or British overseas territory the provider is in and the destination the placement takes place in, including transfers.

Travel grants will be available to all students from the school sector. We will also fund the travel of accompanying staff members.

We will provide funding for each student, based on a travel grant rate for each destination. There is a list of destinations and grant rates.  

If the cost of travel is below the suggested rate, you can use the difference for travel costs in other placements.

We may request evidence of actual travel costs.

You must:

• ensure that total travel claims do not exceed the granted amount
• return any travel funding that is not spent on eligible travel activity to DfE

Contribution to living costs 

We will provide funding to help with daily living costs for each student and accompanying staff members.

The amount each student can receive depends on the group the destination is in. Groups are based on an assessment of the general cost of living in those destinations:

• group 1 – higher cost of living
• group 2 – lower cost of living

There is information on destinations in each group in the list of destinations and grant rates.

The funding we will provide is:

Placement duration	Group 1	Group 2
First 14 days	£55 a day	£50 a day
After 14 days	£40 a day	£35 a day

Extra funding for students from disadvantaged backgrounds  

The Turing Scheme prioritises students from disadvantaged backgrounds who might face particular challenges meeting the cost of an international placement.

Students from disadvantaged backgrounds can receive extra funding for readiness to travel.

We generally define these students as people who meet any of the following criteria:

• someone with an annual household income of £35,000 or less
• someone who has been entitled to free school meals at any point in the past 6 years because of being in a low-income household
• someone with experience of being in care or who is a care leaver – including anyone who is or has been in care, or from a looked after background, at any stage of their life
• a refugee or an asylum seeker
• someone who is receiving Universal Credit or income related benefits themselves, or lives with someone who does

Receiving free school meals in reception, year 1 and year 2 in England or primary 1 to 5 in Scotland does not automatically meet the criteria for funding for students from disadvantaged backgrounds.    

This list is not exhaustive. You can include students who do not meet these criteria but may still share similar characteristics that means they are less able to meet the cost of an international placement.

Students who are underrepresented in international placements

When you apply, we’ll also ask you to set out how you will support students from groups that are underrepresented in international study and work placements.

Underrepresented groups for the scheme include:  

• ethnic minorities, including white minorities
• people with SEND, including people with ALN in Wales and people with ASN in Scotland

Students from underrepresented groups are not automatically eligible for additional funding which is available for students from disadvantaged backgrounds or students with SEND, ALN or ASN.

Some underrepresented students may be eligible for additional funding if they are from a disadvantaged background, meaning they share characteristics that mean that they are less able to meet the costs of an international placement.

Readiness to travel funding 

We will provide funding to help students from disadvantaged backgrounds prepare to travel.

You must only use readiness to travel funding for: 

• passports
• visa applications and reasonable associated costs such as translated documents, travel to appointments and police certificates
• vaccines
• travel insurance
• medical certificates

You should apply using estimated actual costs associated with the items. They will be paid as actual costs rather than at set rates.

You must not use readiness to travel funding to purchase goods or assets such as clothing or luggage.

Extra funding for students with SEND

We provide extra funding for students if their school says they attend as a student with SEND, including ASN in Scotland and ALN in Wales.

You can claim support for additional costs that these students may face on international placements as a result of their special educational or additional needs.

This could include, for example:

• particular accommodation
• extra legroom
• pre-placement visits to the destination by staff to check suitability

These costs must be related to the student’s special educational need or disability and necessary to enable the student to take part in the placement.

You must not use SEND funding to purchase goods or assets such as clothing or luggage.

You must outline why you need the funds when you apply for the scheme.

You should apply using the estimated costs associated with students with SEND. These will be paid as actual costs, rather than based on set rates.

Organisational support 

We will provide funding to support administration and implementation costs.

We will provide £315 per student for the first 100 students, and £180 per student after that. 

You must only use organisational support funding for:

• direct staffing costs which are proportionate with running placements, including language preparation and student ambassadors involved in the scheme
• costs associated with appointing an external organisation (such as a private company) to administer and implement placements, including language preparation and paying programme fees to placement providers
• external audit fees
• room bookings for preparatory or post-placement events

You cannot use organisational support funding for any other activity, including:

• promoting or marketing the scheme
• appointing an external organisation to write your application
• IT service costs such as licenses, software, or hardware
• contingency funding for other budgets, or to cover emergencies
• staff accompanying students on placements
• staff or student visits to attend events with current or potential partners inside or outside the UK

You cannot claim organisational support for placements at overseas campuses of your own organisation.  

Direct staffing costs may be:

• short-term costs
• entire roles
• proportions of entire roles, for example if the staff member has other responsibilities not associated with running placements

You will need to record the costs incurred for staffing because of running placements directly.

Where any of the eligible organisational support costs are paid directly by students, you may give them the money, but you will need to collect receipts.

When you apply, you will need to set out how you will use organisational support funds for your project, including how procurement of external services represents value for money.

You must regularly report how much of these funds you spend and return any unused funds to DfE. 

You should keep evidence of any expenditure and be prepared to provide a detailed breakdown on request. This may include items such as: 

• receipts
• quotes
• records of how staff time has been spent