Compliance. For many people, that word evokes a sense of dread, especially if you don’t understand how the process works. However, you’re not in it alone! We’re here to help the compliance process feel much less daunting, and get you through the paperwork. That way, we can get you started at the perfect education position as soon as possible.
But first, you might be wondering why all of this paperwork is necessary?
Work with children falls into the area of “Regulated Activity” which means that the people you will be working with are vulnerable. So, extra care must be taken when selecting individuals to work with them. UK legislation demands that we make every possible effort to ensure that anyone applying to work with children has the right to do that work, is suitably qualified, and most importantly, safe to be placed, unsupervised, into an education setting.
We will take copies of your documents and store these securely in our cloud-based system. We will only use what you entrust us with for work seeking purposes and we comply with 7 Principles of the General Data Protection Regulations, which you can read here.
Below, you will find a list of our forms that we ask you to complete and we’ll go into detail with everything that is required:
• Contract
• Compliance form
• Document Upload
• References
Contract
Before we can start promoting you for exciting education jobs, you’ll need to sign our Contract for Services.
All this legal stuff can be pretty confusing, but we’re here to answer any questions you might have.
One of our most common questions when it comes to our Contract for Services is: “Do I exclusively have to work for Bounce Teachers?” The answer is no. Signing our Contract does not mean that you cannot apply and accept other roles. Our Contract for Services simply ensures that our recruitment process is ethical, legal, and safe for all parties involved.
Compliance Form
Our Compliance Form is used to gather any important relevant to your application. Below, we’ll cover some of the things we ask for.
Health Declaration
Whilst the Equality Act does prohibit recruiters from asking pre-employment health questions, because you are applying to work within Regulated Activity, we can ask you to confirm that:
• You are fit and well enough to carry out the full duties of the role you are applying for
• If you consider yourself to have a disability
• If you require us to request reasonable adjustments for you
If you declare a condition that has only recently been resolved or managed by medication, we may ask you to provide confirmation from your GP that you are fit and well enough to work with children.
We will not share information relating to your medical history with clients unless we have discussed the situation with you first and received your written permission to do so.
Disqualification Declaration
We must draw your attention to the Disqualification under the Childcare Act and ensure that you understand the statutory guidance. If you do not understand the guidance, we will provide you with the relevant material in order to help clarify.
If you have told us that you ARE Disqualified under the Childcare Act 2006, we’ll give you the information you need to obtain an OFSTED waiver.
Understanding Safeguarding
It is important that you understand safeguarding and read through the “Keeping children safe in Education” & “Working together to Safeguard Children in Education”. These documents ensure a safe environment for the children you will be working with. If you do not understand the safeguarding terms, we will provide you with further information to help clarify.
Recruitment of Ex-Offenders
When recruiting for work in Regulated Activity, there is no such thing as a “Spent” conviction. This means that whenever your conviction occurred, even if it was 20 or more years ago, you must still tell us about it in the relevant section of the application process. Cautions must also be declared.
If you have a criminal record, this does not necessarily mean that we will not be able to work with you. It is actually unlawful to reject someone for work purely on the basis of a criminal record, without first conducting a risk assessment. It is however essential that you tell us about any convictions at the earliest possible stage in the process. A failure to do so may result in us terminating your application.
Amongst other things, a risk assessment will consider the nature of the offence, when it took place, the penalty received, (fine, community service, etc.) and the relevance of the offence to working with children. Please be aware that this information will be shared with clients and ultimately the final decision as to whether or not you can take on a role will rest with the client concerned.
If you declare a conviction in your application, a member of the team will be in touch with you to discuss and implement the next steps.
Overseas Residency
If you have lived in any other country for more than 6 months in the last 5 years (continuously or in total, while aged 18 and over), we will ask you to declare so on your Compliance Form. Please note, a police check from the country declared will be requested.
We will provide you with all the necessary information you need in order to apply, but please keep in mind that it needs to be issued within 6 months from your date of entry into the UK. This means if you obtained your police check in January 2021, whilst you are still living abroad, and you return to the UK in July 2021, your police check is not valid and a new one would need to be issued.
Document Upload
Using our Document Upload form, you can provide us with any important documentation that we’ll need in order to clear you for work.
Right to Work
Every agency and employer must obtain proof that an individual has the Right to Work (RTW) in the UK. If proven that an agency or employer has not carried out appropriate RTW checks, they can be fined up to £20,000 per illegal worker. There are a number of documents we can accept depending on your status.
UK Citizens:
• An original birth certificate along with proof of National Insurance Number
• UK Passport
EU Citizens:
Since 01/07/2021, EU Citizens can no longer use their passport as proof of RTW.
If you have obtained settled/pre-settled status, you can prove your Right to Work using a share code. When the time comes, we will send you a link to show you how to obtain the code.
Applicants from Anywhere Else in the World (and EU Citizens without settled/pre-settled status):
Current valid Passport and Biometric Residence Permit (BRP).
Identification Documents
We must show that we have established that you are who you say you are. This means that we must see photographic ID issued by a government department.
UK Citizens:
• Passport or Driving License
EU Citizens:
• Passport, Driving License, or ID card
Anywhere Else in the World:
• Passport, Driving License, or BRP
Proof of Address
Our policy states we can accept either one form of ID, plus two proofs of address, or two forms of ID, plus one proof of address.
You might be asking: what is a valid proof of address? That’s a very good question. There is an extensive list and you can see it in full here if you wish. However, such a long list might feel quite daunting.
We find that most work-seekers find the following the easiest to provide:
• Bank Statement – dated within the last three months
• Utility Bill (e.g. gas, electricity, phone – not mobile) – dated within the last three months
• Council Tax Bill – dated within the last 12 months
• P45/P60 – dated within the last 12 months
• Driving License (this can be used alongside your Passport as a secondary ID, even if the address is not the same)
Please note that currently, we are not able to accept digital statements. If you only have access to online accounts, please feel free to get in touch and we can explore which route we can take to clear you for work.
If you are joining us from Overseas, we cannot ask you for your UK proof of address until you have found a home and have bills or a bank statement to send to us.
Qualifications
We are required to check that you have the correct qualifications for the role that you are applying for. If you are applying for teaching positions, you must first provide us proof of your teaching qualification. All qualified teachers in the UK must apply for a QTS certificate. Qualified Teacher Status (QTS) is considered the gold standard for many schools in the UK and you will need to obtain this in order to teach in most schools.
UK Trained Teachers:
• PGCE or B.Ed certificate, etc.
• QTS certificate
EU Trained Teachers:
• Your Teaching Certificates (PGCE, B.Ed, etc.)
• Confirmation of your QTS
Other Nationals
• Teaching Certificate (PGCE, B.Ed, etc.)
• Confirmation of QTS if applicable (Overseas Trained Teachers can work in the UK for up to 4 years without QTS if all other qualification needs are met)
• Equivalency certificate from UK ENIC
Teaching Assistants and Cover Supervisors are not required to have any particular qualifications in order to work in a school environment. However, there are many qualifications out there that you can obtain in order to help you with these roles and we do ask that you send us a copy if you have any.
CV/Resume
An updated CV is a vital tool in the recruitment process. This tells us about yourself, and where you have been working so that we can see if you have the skills and experience to do the job you are applying for.
• You should start with your work history with your most recent job first, listing your roles chronologically
• Be clear when you started and ended each role in a MM/YYYY format (e.g. 09/2020 – 06/2021)
• Include ALL work, even if it was not in an education setting
• Give a short explanation for any gaps (e.g. 01/2018 – 09/2018 parental leave, etc.)
• Please include a full 10 years’ work/education history
Your CV also acts as a legally binding document that states your full employment history, which we then validate through your references.
DBS/Police Check
A DBS certificate (previously known as CRB) is one of the most important documents required to prove that you are safe to work with children.
In order to ensure that the correct checks have taken place to work with us, your enhanced DBS certificate needs to be Child Workforce Only. We cannot use an Adult Barred List DBS as you will not be working with vulnerable adults. Child and Adult workforce DBS’s are only valid for roles where the holder is working simultaneously with children and vulnerable adults who require personal care.
If you obtained a DBS somewhere other than Bounce Teachers, your certificate needs to be registered with the Update Service. The service costs £13 a year and allows you to work in multiple different places of employment without having to issue a new DBS certificate. However, please keep in mind that you must register for the Update Service within 30 days of the certificate being issued.
If you require a new DBS certificate, it costs £50 and, if you wish, we can do the application for you.
References
Our policy is to obtain a reference from all places of employment over the last two years, including your current/most recent employer.
At least one of your references must comment on the role which you are applying for (for example, if you are applying for the role of Teaching Assistant, we require a reference from a previous Teaching Assistant position). However, whilst we do accept Teaching Agency references, they are not allowed to comment on your classroom-based experience. Therefore, we ask for referee details from at least one school that you have worked in.
Additionally, all references must be verifiable. This means that they must come to us via an official email address. Therefore, we cannot accept references from personal email addresses such as Hotmail, Gmail, Yahoo, etc., unless we can verify them elsewhere.
We appreciate that real life is not as straightforward as policy suggests, so if you have any questions or concerns about references, please feel free to get in touch. We can work together to find an alternative route and find a compliant resolution to getting you cleared for work.
So, there you have it! We hope you have found this guide useful. If you have any questions, a member of the Compliance Team will be more than happy to speak with you so please feel free to get in touch.
