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CRB Checks for British Teachers

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The teaching profession is often seen as a vocation, and can indeed be very rewarding, both personally and financially. Many young people especially see teaching as their career, and the UK produces some of the best teachers in the world. Finding work within the country, however, has become more difficult in recent years, especially since austerity measures were introduced following the 2008 global financial crisis. Potential teachers, therefore, often find they have to be more flexible than ever before in the types of job they take, and where they go to do them. Being able to relocate, either within the four UK nations or elsewhere in the world, therefore, is something that will benefit more and more teachers in future.

Teachers’ Criminal Record Checks

As British teachers are in demand in many places, a lot of those newly qualified in the profession will soon find attractive job offers abroad. As with any situation where demand is high, there will be unscrupulous people ready to satisfy it. In the case of teaching, this can be groups or individuals who are looking for ways to gain access to children for their own purposes. Understandably, then, employers advertising for teachers go to great lengths to ensure that job applicants are who they say they are, and can produce acceptable proof of criminal record checks.

Teachers applying for non-UK jobs are likely to face criminal record checks based on the host country’s own legal system. Although most legislation will be broadly similar, the means of actually providing proof of good character in the past can be challenging in some countries. British applicants often find this confusing and sometimes intrusive. However, to help overcome these differences in approach, there is now the International Child Protection certificate (ICPC), which is “a criminal records check for anyone who lives, or has lived, in the UK and who is looking to work with children overseas”. This can be obtained via the ACRO service, and is the perfect way to prove the applicant’s credentials to employers.

The ACRO System

ACRO refers to the UK’s Criminal Records Office, and ACRO checks are delivered as a service by British police forces. Although there is no national police service as such, all police authorities within the UK’s borders pool their records for ACRO, so that anyone with a criminal record in one authority will be visible at a national level. In terms of disclosing these records, this is done on the basis of the Disclosure and Barring Service (DBS) checking basis; i.e. at Basic, Standard and Enhanced levels.

When people ask “what is a DBS or CRB check?”, this is often because they find these acronyms confusing. In fact, the DBS system is the modern version of the CRB check; the latter referring to the Criminal Records Bureau, which itself has been replaced by the Criminal Records Office (ACRO). Although the terms are different, they all refer to the same high standard of criminal record keeping and reporting. As the ICPC shows, these records are trusted internationally, giving British teachers an advantage when looking for work abroad.

Teaching in Europe Post-Brexit

Young people leaving further and higher education with teaching qualifications are facing one extra obstacle since 2020. For the first time in several generations, those wanting to work in the European Union will have to apply as foreign nationals, like anyone else outside the bloc. Before Brexit, British teachers were EU citizens, and therefore free to take up work anywhere in the Union. Of course, DBS checks still had to be carried out, but this would have been the case when applying for a British job. Now, UK teachers will need to apply for a work permit, which will itself mean providing proof of an appropriately “clean” criminal record that satisfies the employing country’s standards.

Of course, this is still perfectly possible, but it will undoubtedly affect how young teachers see their first teaching job. Teaching English is one very large asset for many teachers, and graduates could look forward to doing so in European towns and cities not far away from home. This had the added bonus of boosting income on top of teaching another subject, while enjoying local hospitality. It is likely a lot of new teachers will now think long and hard about where they apply for their first “foreign” job, if they do so at all. With teaching work in the UK harder to find, this may make starting out somewhat harder.

Source: Plato Data Intelligence: PlatoData.io

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