One Transition Year, one qualification they keep for life.
Buy your son or daughter the accredited 120 hour TEFL certificate as a Transition Year elective, or add a 30 hour specialist course for the price of a cinema ticket. Taken online, at home, in their own time.
Nothing for the school to organise. You buy it, they log in, the certificate is issued in their own name.
A focused student finishes the 120 hours in three to four weeks. Nine months of access means a September start does not have to be a September finish.
Accredited,
and checkable
Why this one lasts
Most of Transition Year is an experience. This is an experience that comes with a certificate.
Transition Year is deliberately built around things that cannot be examined — work experience, projects, community work, trying something new. That is the point of it, and it is genuinely valuable. But at the end of the year most of it exists only as a memory and a line in a portfolio.
A TEFL qualification is different in one specific way: it is issued by an outside body, it is dated, it carries a reference number, and it does not expire. It is the same certificate an adult pays for. Your child earns it at fifteen or sixteen and still holds it at twenty-five.
It is a real qualification, not a taster
One hundred and twenty hours, ten assessed modules, an external accreditor and a certificate in your child’s own name. No participation slip, no attendance note.
It teaches the skill under every career
Standing in front of a room, explaining something clearly, planning ahead, reading whether you are being understood. Teaching is the fastest way a teenager learns to do all four.
It fills the portfolio properly
The Transition Year programme statement asks every student to keep an individual portfolio and to explore careers. An external, dated, accredited certificate is the strongest single thing that can go into it.
It keeps a door open for later
Teaching English is one of the few qualifications that travels. Once your child is eighteen or over and finished school, the certificate is the recognised starting point for teaching abroad or online — if they ever want it.
The main programme
The 120 Hour School TEFL Elective
The same accredited 120 hour TEFL certificate our adult students take, set up as a Transition Year elective. Bought once, by you, for your own child.
Ten assessed modules, taken online at their own pace
Everything a new English teacher has to know, broken into modules a fifteen or sixteen year old can work through without a teacher standing over them. Each module ends in an assessment, and the course keeps track of where they are.
- Grammar for teachers, from the ground up
- How to plan a lesson that actually works
- Teaching speaking and listening
- Teaching reading and writing
- Classroom management and behaviour
- Teaching vocabulary and pronunciation
- Materials, resources and lesson activities
- Teaching English online
- Working with different ages and levels
- Assessment, feedback and correcting errors
120 Hour School TEFL Elective
€120
One payment. No monthly fee, no exam fee, no certificate fee at the end.
Enrol now →- Accredited by OTCAC, with CPD credits through The CPD Group
- Nine months of access from the day they log in
- Certificate issued in the student’s own name, dated, no expiry
- Tutor support by email while they are studying
Already doing it through school? Forty eight schools across nineteen counties run this as a class module. If your child’s school is one of them, they do not need to buy it here — ask the Transition Year coordinator first.
The specialist courses
Four 30 hour courses, €15 each — or all four for €45
Short, self-contained courses that each end in their own certificate. They can be taken alongside the 120 hour elective, or entirely on their own if you want to start small.
All four specialist courses
One hundred and twenty additional hours across the four specialisms, and four separate certificates rather than one. Bought individually they come to €60.
- Teaching English Online
- Teaching Business English
- Teaching Young Learners
- IELTS Exam Preparation
€45 €60
Four courses, four certificates, 120 hours.
Add the bundle →30 hours
Teaching English Online
How the online classroom actually works — platforms, screen presence, digital materials, and holding a student’s attention through a camera. The fastest-growing part of the field, and the one a teenager takes to instantly.
30 hours
Teaching Business English
Teaching English to working adults: meetings, presentations, negotiation, email. The best-paid corner of teaching, and the skills come straight back into their own CV, interviews and college presentations.
30 hours
Teaching Young Learners
Games, songs, stories, routine, behaviour, pace. The most in-demand specialism worldwide, and the obvious one for a student already thinking about primary teaching, childcare, coaching or youth work.
30 hours
IELTS Exam Preparation
How the world’s most widely taken English exam is built and marked, and how to move a candidate up a band. Understanding how a high-stakes exam is graded is a useful thing to carry into fifth and sixth year.
Where it goes next
What a certificate earned at sixteen is still doing at twenty-six
This is the part most Transition Year activities cannot offer. The certificate does not stop being useful when the year ends.
It sits on college applications, scholarship forms and any personal statement as evidence they finish what they start. It is also the answer to the interview question about what they did in Transition Year.
Grinds, conversation practice, camps and language-school summer work in Ireland all favour someone with a teaching qualification over someone without one.
Once they are eighteen or over and out of school, TEFL is the recognised route into teaching English abroad or online — the classic way a student funds a year of travel.
If teaching turns out to be the thing, the 120 hour certificate upgrades into our Ofqual-regulated Level 5 diploma, awarded by Highfield Qualifications. They would not be starting from zero.
A note on teaching abroad: a Transition Year student cannot work overseas, and we would never suggest otherwise. Everything in the third and fourth columns above applies after school, at eighteen or over. What they get now is the qualification and the skill.
What is included
Everything in the price, and nothing after it
One payment covers the whole course. There is no assessment fee, no certificate release fee and no subscription.
| 120 Hour TEFL Elective — €120 | Specialist bundle — €45 | Single specialist — €15 | |
|---|---|---|---|
| Study hours | 120 hours, ten assessed modules | 120 hours across four courses | 30 hours |
| Certificates issued | One accredited TEFL certificate | Four separate certificates | One certificate |
| Accreditation | OTCAC, plus CPD credits through The CPD Group | Certified specialist courses | Certified specialist course |
| Access period | Nine months from enrolment | Nine months from enrolment | Nine months from enrolment |
| Typical time to finish | Three to four weeks focused, or across a term | A few evenings per course | A weekend |
| Tutor support by email | Included | Included | Included |
| Extra fees later | None | None | None |
| Counts toward a Level 5 upgrade | Yes, later if they want it | No, these sit alongside it | No, these sit alongside it |
Prices shown in euro and correct at the time of purchase. The specialist courses are additional to the 120 hour elective rather than a replacement for it.
Questions parents ask
The eight things we are asked most
No. The course is written for adults but the material is entirely readable at fifteen or sixteen, and Transition Year students take it in forty eight schools across the country already. There is no minimum age and no prior qualification needed. What it does need is a student who will sit down and work through it, which is exactly the habit Transition Year is trying to build.
Almost none. You buy it, we email the login details, and your child works through it on a laptop, tablet or phone. There is no timetable to keep, no live class to attend and nothing to post. Tutor support is by email, so if they get stuck they contact us directly rather than coming back through you.
They have nine months of access from the day they log in, so a course started in September can be finished at Easter. Progress is saved as they go, so nothing is lost if they leave it for a few weeks. A focused student finishes the 120 hours in three to four weeks; most spread it across a term.
No. It is issued in the student’s own name, it is dated, and it does not expire. A certificate earned in Transition Year is still valid when they are applying for a job at twenty-two.
Yes, and we would rather you did. The 120 hour certificate is accredited by OTCAC and carries CPD credits through The CPD Group. Our Level 5 diplomas — the government-regulated route a student would take later if they wanted to teach for real — are regulated by Ofqual, awarded by Highfield Qualifications and listed on a public register. Every reference number is published on our accreditation page rather than described vaguely as “internationally accredited”.
Not while they are still in school, and we will not pretend otherwise. What they hold now is a qualification and a genuine skill. Once they are eighteen or over and finished school, that certificate is the recognised starting point for teaching English abroad or online — which is how a great many students end up funding a gap year.
Probably not — ask the Transition Year coordinator first. Where a school runs the module for a whole class, the school arranges it and there is nothing for you to buy. This page is for parents whose school does not offer it, or whose child wants to take it independently or add the specialist courses on top.
If you are unsure whether it will hold their interest, a single €15 specialist course is a sensible thirty-hour test and still ends in a certificate. If they already have some interest in teaching, languages, travel or working with children, the 120 hour elective is the one that carries real weight later, and the specialists are best added to it rather than instead of it.
Give them something the year cannot take back
Transition Year is over in nine months. An accredited teaching qualification is not. Enrol your son or daughter today and they will have it for the rest of their working life.
Questions before you buy? Email info@tefl.ie or call the office and ask for the Transition Year team.
For coordinators, parents and boards
Who checks the course a school puts in front of its students
Transition Year students take our 120-hour TEFL certificate, accredited by OTCAC and carrying CPD credits through The CPD Group. Our Level 5 diplomas are the government regulated route: regulated by Ofqual, awarded by Highfield Qualifications and listed on a public register, and they are the ones students go on to if they want to teach for real after school.
We publish every reference number rather than describe the courses as simply “internationally accredited”, so a coordinator or a parent can check it in a minute.
See our accreditation and regulation record