You are a parent or legal guardian of a child or children who remain under the age of 18 at the start of the training year who reside(s) primarily with you and for whom you have significant caring responsibilities, and your circumstances have changed since submitting your original application or commencing your foundation training.
You must describe how your circumstances have changed and why you need to move to meet your parental responsibilities.
It is expected that the foundation school requested for the transfer will be the foundation school that you and your child(ren) live local to. Your proof of address must be for a home that falls within the boundaries of the requested foundation school.
If you and the child(ren) do not normally reside together, this should be explained in the application form, and information supplied as to why the caring responsibilities remain equally significant.
If the sole criterion is that you (or your partner) has become pregnant since submitting your Foundation Programme application or since commencing your foundation training, this will not be regarded as an eligible reason for an IFST.
Completing the application form for criterion 1
- Part 1 of the application form must be completed by you, in which you provide an applicant statement with information about your current parental or legal guardian responsibilities and list the details of your child(ren). You must describe how your circumstances have changed and why you need to move to meet your parental responsibilities.
- Part 2 of the application form is a supporting statement which must be completed by a supporting signatory who can confirm that they know both you AND the child(ren). This person must have a professional working relationship with the child(ren), e.g. teacher, headteacher, pre-school/nursery manager, midwife, GP/doctor, social worker.
- Part 3 of the application form must be completed by the Foundation School Director (or deputy) at the foundation school within which you are already in a training programme, or have been allocated to.
- Part 4 of the application does not contain any section that requires completion or a signature. However, the information provided should be read and understood by the applicant.
The information provided by the supporting signatory needs to be legible, clear and explicit.
Supporting evidence requirements
You are required to provide the following supporting evidence
- A copy of the long/full version of the birth certificate is required for at least one of the children listed in your application.
- If a birth certificate has been issued by a country outside of the UK and is not fully written in English, a complete and accurate translated copy must be provided so that the national review panel are able to read it. If a translated copy is not provided the IFST application may be rejected by the review panel. The original language document and the translation document must both be provided.
- The short version of the birth certificate must NOT be provided, because it does not include the names of the parents and therefore won’t provide the review panel with the name of the applicant/parent which is needed for this application process. Applicants must provide the long/full version.
- The applicant’s name as the parent must be listed on the birth certificate for at least one of the children listed in the application (unless legal guardianship applies, see point 3 below).
- Proof of current address in your name, and which is in the area of the foundation school that you need to transfer to (see proof of address guidance for list of acceptable documents).
- In addition to providing the above supporting evidence (1 and 2), if you have been appointed as a legal guardian to the child(ren) and are not a named parent on the birth certificate, you must provide a copy of the legal document that confirms your status for the child named in the birth certificate. For example, a Parental Responsibility Order.
- If a legal document has been issued by a country outside of the UK and is not fully written in English, a complete and accurate translated copy must be provided so that the national review panel are able to read it. If a translated copy is not provided the IFST application may be rejected by the review panel. The original language document and the translation document must both be provided.
The supporting signatory must:
- have a relevant professional working relationship with your child(ren) e.g. teacher, headteacher, pre-school/nursery manager, midwife, GP/doctor, social worker.
- be over the age of 18.
- have known the applicant for 1 month or more. In circumstances where this is not the case, the applicant must provide an explanation as to why their supporting signatory has not known them longer, and why an alternative signatory could not be used to support the application
If it is not clear from the role/job title of your supporting signatory how they know your child(ren) in a professional capacity, please provide information in the applicant statement box to explain the context of their professional working relationship with your child(ren). - not be in a personal relationship with the applicant.
- not live at the same address as the applicant.
- not be related to the applicant by birth or marriage.
- not be a doctor in training of any grade (up to ST8).