Teaching Regulation Agency Checks

Teacher's record Check - Prohibitions, directions, sanctions and restrictions

This check included TA/LSA/HLTA with teaching responsibilities.

• KCSiE says “A person who is prohibited must not be appointed to a role that involves teaching work (as defined in the Teachers’ Disciplinary (England) Regulations 2012)”.
  
  
• The full range of “prohibitions, directions, sanctions and orders for school staff and Governors” are at KCSiE 2026 paragraphs 330 – 339.

You must check a teacher’s record before they start working for you in a school or college in England. If you use a teacher supply agency you must make sure they’ve checked the teacher’s record.

Before you check their record, you:

• will need a DfE account/login by using this link Department for Education (DfE) and follow on-screen instructions
• will need their last name and date of birth
• should confirm the teacher’s identity

A teacher’s record tells you whether they have:

• qualified teacher status (QTS) or early years teacher status (EYTS)
• passed their induction
• national professional qualifications (NPQ) or mandatory qualifications for teaching pupils with sensory impairments
• been prohibited from teaching by the Teaching Regulation Agency or General Teaching Council for England
• been found guilty of serious misconduct but not prohibited from teaching

Ofsted and Buckinghamshire Council recommends that teacher’s checks are carried out for all staff members with teaching responsibilities. ‘Teaching work’ is defined below:

• Planning and preparing lessons and courses for pupils
• Delivering lessons to pupils
• Assessing the development, progress and attainment of pupils
• Reporting on the development, progress and attainment of pupils

In addition to obtaining the DBS certificate, anyone who is appointed to carry out teaching work will require an additional check to ensure they are not prohibited from teaching – the prohibition order.

A prohibition order means that the person concerned is not allowed to undertake unsupervised teaching work in schools or other settings.

With effect from 3 September 2018 (KCSiE) the following lists should be checked:the Historic GTCE Sanctions & Restrictions list should also be checked by schools / Academies for any teaching staff; the “Teachers who have failed induction or probation” list which is also at the Teacher Services website must also be checked by schools / Academies to confirm that any teaching staff is not on the list.

All four lists can be checked via the Teacher Services website:

• Teachers who have failed induction or probation
• General Teaching Council for England (GTCE) Sanctions
• Teachers and others prohibited from the profession
• Section 128 barring directions

We recommend that all four lists above are checked for all teaching staff (not just new teaching staff) and recorded on an SCR.

European Economic Area (EEA) teachers with sanctions

From 1 January 2021 the Teaching Regulation Agency no longer maintains a list of EEA teachers with sanctions, so this check (undertaken by schools via the Teacher Services/Employer Access route) is no longer be available. Instead, teachers will need to be asked to provide a letter of professional standing from the organisation responsible for regulating teachers in the country in which they qualified. Teachers who are qualified in the EEA will be required to present this when they apply for Qualified Teacher Status in England.