About Teaching Staff Trust
We provide fast, one-off financial support to people who work — or have worked — in the education of under-19s across the UK.
Teaching Staff Trust is a charity that provides hardship grants to help people through times of financial trouble. If you work or have worked in the education of under-19s in the UK for at least five years and need help, just ask. We respond to all applications within two working days.
Since 2020 we have awarded more than £3 million in grants to education professionals — from teachers and teaching assistants to lunch supervisors, nursery workers and retired school staff. Our grants are not loans: you don't have to pay us back, and it costs nothing to apply.
Our one-time payments can be used to help with priority bills, housing costs, food, travel or other essentials when something happens that you couldn't have expected. We're here for education staff facing illness, bereavement, relationship breakdown, loss of income, or a sudden need to move.
TST is a small charity run by a dedicated team working remotely. Our board of trustees oversees the Trust and sets the policies for the support that we work to. Together, the team and trustees make sure every grant reaches the people who need it, quickly and with dignity.
We respond to every application within two working days, because we know hardship can't wait.
Our grants are gifts, not loans. There is nothing to pay back and nothing to apply.
We support education professionals the length and breadth of the UK.
TST took over from SGBI, a charity with a heritage of over 170 years of work assisting educators in financial hardship, in 2017. In 2018 we merged with SOSS, the Society of Schoolmasters and Schoolmistresses (founded in 1797), with whom we'd worked closely for many years.
Explore our historyTeaching Staff Trust is dedicated to transparency and collaborates with 360Giving to share information about our grants. You can download an Excel file containing details of our grants from April 2020 to March 2025, published according to the 360Giving Data Standard.
This work is licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License, which means the data is freely accessible to anyone to be used and shared as they wish. The data must be attributed to Teaching Staff Trust.
Download the data