We’ve already designed a service sign in page. This will be the starting point for the service until it’s publicly available and has a start page on GOV.UK.
We decided to change the sign in page so that it also tells users:
- what they need to enter to search for a teacher’s record
- what types of restrictions are included in a teacher’s record
What users need to enter when searching
Users of the current Employer Access service search for teachers by last name and teacher reference number (TRN).
Users of the new service instead need to enter the teacher’s last name and date of birth. We’ll say this on the sign in page so that users can make sure they have the right information.
What types of restrictions are included
A record in the current Employer Access service shows an alert if the teacher:
- failed their induction or probation
- is prevented from teaching by a prohibition order
- was sanctioned by the General Teaching Council for England (GTCE)
- is banned from managing an independent school
- is on the children’s barred list
In the new service we refer to these as restrictions. On the sign in page we do not mention the last 2 types of restrictions.
The teacher is banned from managing an independent school
The teacher record in the new service will not say if a teacher is banned from managing an independent school. This is because:
- the information is publicly available on GOV.UK
- only around 30 people are banned and many of them are not teachers
Since the service will not include this restriction, we do not mention it on the sign in page.
The teacher is on the children’s barred list
The new service will say if a teacher is on the children’s barred list but we do not mention this on the sign in page.
We’ve decided not to mention it because the children’s barred list should usually be checked as part of an enhanced Disclosure and Barring Service (DBS) check.
In some circumstances, users are allowed to check the children’s barred list separately. We’ve created another new service to allow them to do this.
We’ve decided to continue showing results from the children’s barred list in the teacher record. This will match the ‘find a teacher’ function in the Employer Access service, which does not mention the list but does include results from it.
We may decide later to stop showing results from the list in the teacher record. We do not want to encourage users to rely on checking the children’s barred list as part of checking a teacher’s record.
Further considerations
We’ll still need a sign in page once the service has a start page on GOV.UK. This is because for technical reasons we cannot link straight from GOV.UK to DfE Sign-in.
We’ll need to decide how to split content between the start page and sign in page.
Screenshots
Sign in page
