Teacher status checks: information for employers
Teacher Services is a free service to check the record of a teacher you employ or are considering employing.
Overview
Teacher Services should be used before appointing a teacher to check for:
- the award of qualified teacher status (QTS)
- completion of teacher induction
- prohibitions, sanctions and restrictions that might prevent the individual from taking part in certain activities or working in specific positions
It’s a free service for schools, sixth-form and further education (FE) colleges, local authorities and teacher supply agencies in England. It’s accessed through Department for Education’s (DfE) Sign-in portal.
Please read the keeping children safe in education statutory guidance for further information on the pre-appointment checks that schools and sixth-form colleges must carry out. Schools and sixth-form colleges should also make sure that any employment business (agency) they use to provide supply teachers also carry out these checks.
Access Teacher Services
If you’re a school, sixth-form or FE college, or local authority user and you do not have a DfE Sign-in account, you can ask your approver to create an account for you. If you do not know who your approver is then you can create your own DfE Sign-In account, and request access to your organisation and the services you need for your role, using this help guidance.
If your organisation is a school, sixth-form college or FE college you will need to choose the ‘Teacher Services - Employer Access - Schools’ service. If your organisation is a local authority you will need to choose the ‘Teacher Services - Employer Access - Organisations’ service.
If you need help using DfE Sign-In then you can submit a support request using this help guidance. Select the action you need help with and there will be an option on the following page to submit a support request.
Teacher supply agencies should contact employer.access@education.gov.uk to request access. You should normally receive a response to a request for access within 5 working days.
Checking teacher records
Identity checking
You need to confirm the individual’s identity before you use Teacher Services to check any information about a prospective employee. Identity checking guidelines, produced by the Disclosure and Barring Service, suggest robust methods to check identity.
View an individual teacher record
If you know the teacher reference number (TRN), and date of birth, you can use the teacher search facility in Teacher Services to view the individual record of any teacher that you employ or are considering employing, including any trainee, newly qualified, or fully qualified teacher.
You’ll be able to:
- view a teacher’s personal details
- view initial teacher training qualifications
- confirm they’ve been awarded QTS
- check whether they’ve successfully completed their teacher induction period
- view any additional qualifications, including relevant mandatory qualifications and national professional qualifications
- identify any prohibition, sanction or restriction that may/will affect their ability to carry out certain activities, or work in particular roles, for example, Secretary of State’s teacher prohibition order
- see details of any Secretary of State decision not to impose a prohibition order following a professional conduct panel’s determination of unacceptable professional conduct, conduct that may bring the profession into disrepute or conviction of a relevant offence
- identify potential restrictions imposed by the Disclosure and Barring Service (DBS)
If you do not know their TRN, you’ll be able to access alphabetical lists of those teachers and others with current prohibitions, restrictions, sanctions, or who have failed induction/probation. If you identify any sanction, prohibition or restriction, you’ll need to consider how this might affect your decision to employ or engage them. Further information about the effect of the various sanctions, prohibitions, restrictions or failure to successfully complete induction or probation is set out in the Teacher Services restrictions’ lists and in keeping children safe in education statutory guidance.
If you want to confirm an individual is eligible for employment in a role that requires QTS as a result of receiving Qualified Teacher Learning and Skills (QTLS) status, you need to contact the Society for Education and Training.
Teacher Services restrictions lists
If you’re unable to search for an individual’s teacher record, you can use Teacher Services to find out if they’ve any current prohibitions, restrictions or sanctions. This information is accessed using the following lists:
- teachers who have failed to successfully complete their induction or probation period
- teachers who are the subject of a suspension or conditional order imposed by the General Teaching Council for England (prior to its abolition)
- teachers and others who are prohibited from teaching in England
- individuals who have been barred from taking part in the management of an independent school (including academies and free schools)
Each list describes how the sanction, prohibition or failure to successfully complete their induction or probation affects the type of work the individual can be employed to do.
Should you find a match to your prospective employee you’ll be able to access their individual account and view further information. You’ll need to consider how this might affect your decision to employ or engage the person.
Disclosure and Barring Service (DBS)
Where a teacher has a DBS restriction this will be indicated only as part of their individual teacher record.
You must obtain information directly from the Disclosure and Barring Service to allow you to confirm any:
- criminal records information
- decisions to bar them from working in regulated activity with children and/or vulnerable adults (barred list checks)
Claim/disown teachers
You can claim individuals employed by your school or sixth-form college. They’ll then be included on your own list of teachers. This allows you to regularly check the teachers you employ without needing to re-enter their details.
If they move to new employment, you can disown them and they’ll be removed from your list of teachers.
By doing this, the individual’s employment history is maintained on our database of teachers.
Teachers can’t be claimed by more than one employer. As supply teachers can choose to register with a number of supply agency organisations, this function isn’t available to supply agencies.
Urgent enquiries
If you’re waiting for login details to be confirmed and have an immediate need to check the status of a teacher please email employer.access@education.gov.uk, entering ‘urgent query’ in the subject line.
Contact Teacher Services
Last updated 18 June 2021 + show all updates
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We have updated the 'Access Teacher Services' section.
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Removed the option to check for EEA teachers sanctioned in EU Member States.
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Updated with links to the DfE Sign-in portal. This replaces the Secure Access portal.
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Added further education (FE) colleges to Access Teacher Services.
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Name changed from Employer access to Teacher Services and new information about the sanction lists.
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First published.