New Immigration System and trainee teachers (September 2020)

Summary

Guidance issued by the DfE on how the new immigration system affects trainees and providers from Jan 2021.

Dear All,

I hope you are all well.

I thought it might be helpful to update you some developments around the new immigration system. As you know new immigration routes will open later this year for people who are not UK or Irish nationals to live, work and study in the UK from 1 January 2021.

Online Guidance

This week we published 4 pieces of online guidance for overseas teachers and trainees and the schools and providers that recruit them.

As you suggested when we met earlier this year, these aim to provide a simple overview of the immigration system, tailored for school sector and signposting people to the relevant bits of Home Office guidance.

• Recruiting teachers from overseas: guidance for schools
• Teaching in England: guidance for overseas teachers
• Recruiting trainee teachers from overseas: guidance for accredited ITT providers
• Training to teach in England: guidance for overseas graduates

We know everyone is extremely busy at the moment but we would be very grateful for anything you can do to bring this guidance to the attention of members involved in overseas recruitment. This will help them prepare for the changes, including considering whether they should apply now to become a visa sponsor.

This is very much a first iteration of the guidance. We will update it as more Home Office guidance becomes available and application processes go live. We’d also very much welcome feedback from you and your members on the content and how it can be improved.

Webinars

We are planning on holding some webinars with the Home Office next half term to talk schools and ITT providers through the changes and answer any questions or concerns they may have. We will be in contact shortly with dates and again would welcome anything you can do to help publicise these.

Settlement Salary Threshold

As you know earlier this year the Home Office decided to suspend the planned annual increases to the settlement salary threshold and review how this would operate in the new system. The settlement threshold is the amount a teacher would need to earn to apply to remain in the UK indefinitely after they have been here on a visa for 5 years or more.

The Home Office have now decided that for teachers, this threshold will be linked to national pay ranges in the same way as the visa salary threshold will be. This is good news and will also apply to teachers on a current Tier 2 visa who apply for settlement after January 2021.

Skilled Worker route

The Home Office have now confirmed that for the new skilled worker route there will be :

• no limit on the number of years a person can stay - under the current Tier 2 route this is restricted to 6 years.

• no 12 months ‘Cooling off’ period - under Tier 2 once someone leaves the UK they cannot apply for a new Tier 2 visa for a year.
• no restriction on entering the UK more than 2 week before the job starts – the visa will start from the expected date of travel instead.

Hope this is helpful but do please let me know if you have any questions or any feedback on the new guidance

Best wishes