The Department for Education has named the UK Centre for Professional Qualifications in the Keeping Children Safe in Education (2020) document as being able to advise on the contact details for the regulatory bodies able to provide a letter of professional standing for teachers planning to work in England. Please follow the guidance below for:
Prior to the UK leaving the European Union, the teaching regulators in the UK received an alert via a secure communications portal when a teaching professional was suspended or struck off, but due to Brexit the UK no longer has access to this portal. If you have worked in a regulated role in the EEA where you have been required to register with a regulatory body, you should contact that regulatory body to request a letter confirming your professional status.
The Regulated Professions Database has the contact details for the regulatory bodies in the EU/EEA and Switzerland. If you would like assistance in locating the contact details for the regulatory body, please email [email protected] confirming the country where you have worked and the title of your profession in the original language (e.g. Primarschullehrer in the German-speaking community of Belgium)
We may be able to assist with locating a regulatory body in a non-EEA country, depending on where you have worked and how you have been employed. Please email [email protected] confirming the country where you have worked and the title of your profession in the original language so that we can try to assist you.
For those who have worked outside of the EEA or in international / private schools where there was no legal requirement to register as a teacher, the Department for Education have confirmed the following:
There is no legal requirement for schools and colleges to contact regulated authorities. KCSIE is clear that individuals who have lived or worked outside of the UK must undergo the same checks as all other staff in schools or colleges. Additionally, employers must make any further checks they think appropriate. Whilst the guidance is not prescriptive on what these further checks must be, it helpfully refers to the Home Office guidance on criminal record checks for overseas applicants as one option.
The guidance also says that these further checks could include asking applicants to provide a letter of professional standing from the regulating authority in the country in which the applicant qualified as a teacher or has worked. This is a suggestion not a legal requirement.
We are aware that it is not always possible to obtain this information, in such cases schools and colleges should consider the information that is available to them, and risk assess whether they have sufficient evidence that supports them in deciding whether to proceed with the appointment.
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