First redesign of the service

Before employing a teacher, employers need to check their record for:

qualified teacher status (QTS)
completion of teacher induction
any prohibitions, sanctions and restrictions that might prevent the teacher from teaching
any additional qualifications, including relevant mandatory qualifications

At the moment, schools, local authorities, teacher supply agencies and other employers can check a teacher’s record.

But the current system is complicated and not user-centred. It also causes potential accessibility issues, for example by not using clear page fields and headers.

So we’ve created a new design to make it clearer and simpler to use.

What we changed

Naming the service

At the moment, the name of the service is Employer Access.

Following GDS guidelines, we need a name that:

helps users to understand what the service does
makes the service easy to search for

So we named the service ‘Check the record of a teacher in England’.

Searching by teacher reference number (TRN)

At the moment, users can search for a teacher using their:

teacher reference number (TRN)
date of birth

We want to make it easy for a user to find the teacher’s record they’re looking for.

So we’ve allowed users to search using a single unique identifier - the TRN. Searches initially return a teacher’s name and organisation. This will help users check they’ve found the right teacher before they access their full record.

Filtering by teachers who have restrictions

At the moment, users need to search 4 different lists of prohibitions, sanctions and restrictions. This puts the burden on the user. It also causes potential accessibility issues, for example by using dropdown menus when users select from a list.

So we’ve created filters to search for:

restrictions
no restrictions

The user can then click on a teacher’s record for more details of the specific restriction. For example:

the date the restriction was applied
the date the restriction will be reviewed (if applicable)
how the restriction affects the teacher’s ability to teach, for example if they can only work at certain types of school

Filtering by organisation

At the moment, users need to carry out various searches to find out where a teacher is employed.

So to make this simpler, we’ve created filters to search for teachers who are:

part of the user’s organisation (‘your organisation’)
part of a different organisation (‘another organisation’)
not currently part of any organisation (‘no organisation’)

Adding a teacher to an organisation

At the moment, users can ‘Claim a teacher’. This adds a teacher to their organisation, so they have easy access to their record.

We’ve made this simpler by adding a link within a teacher’s record: ‘Add to your organisation’.

Simplifying the content

At the moment, the service uses a range of complicated terminology.

We’ve made this simpler by:

writing out acronyms in full on first use, for example ‘teacher reference number (TRN)’
combining similar terminology (‘prohibitions’, ‘alerts’) into a single term: ‘restrictions’
making labels clearer, for example changing ‘date of partial recognition’ to ‘date partial QTS awarded’

Changing the layout of the record page

We’ve grouped the information so it’s in a logical order that’s easier for users to scan.

For example, we’ve flagged any restrictions at the very top of a teacher’s record. We’ve also kept qualifications close together, as well as personal and organisation details.

Further considerations

We’re planning to test these designs to understands the user needs for:

what different users need to see and do, for example features and permissions
finding banned or restricted teachers
doing a ‘light’ DBS check
reviewing 1 of the 4 ‘restricted’ lists of users
employer ID, name and address
if ‘Yes’ is a clear enough answer to ‘Are they eligible to complete a one-year induction period?’
any legislation checks

We also want to consider if there are other ways to improve data security. This includes:

monitoring if users attempt to view multiple TRNs in a single session
investigating how we might allow teachers to grant employers access to their record