Schools can offer people who want to become teachers an experience in their school.

About the service

To help schools offer school experience we offer a free service called Manage School Experience.

This service helps schools:

  • advertise the experience they offer candidates at their school
  • manage bookings and cancellations
  • communicate with candidates

School experience is important for people who are looking to become teachers. It offers them an opportunity to work with children and young people within a real school environment, so they can be sure they’re making the right decision about their future.

Sign-in and use the service

Set up your school’s profile

To start receiving requests and bookings set up a school experience profile.

Your profile outlines details about your school and the experience you offer.

To set up your profile and help candidates choose your school experience we’ll ask you to:

  • describe your school
  • outline the experience available
  • outline any candidate requirements
  • list your available school experience dates and subjects
  • add other details such as dress code and parking details

You can decide who takes part in an experience at your school and what format it takes.

Review candidate information

Once your profile has been set up, you’ll start receiving requests from candidates which will include the following information:

  • contact details – including address, email and telephone number
  • qualifications
  • what they’re looking to get from their school experience
  • how far they’ve got towards becoming a teacher
  • whether they’ve got a DBS certificate

DBS information is completed by the candidate and it’s your responsibility to decide if they comply with your DBS and safeguarding policies.

Contact candidates

You can contact candidates to:

  • discuss their suitability for school experience at your school
  • offer them the best dates you have available
  • find out more about their requirements – including their disability or access needs
  • explain any background and security checks you need them to go through
  • explain any fees they might need to pay, such as administration, DBS check, parking

It’s your responsibility to sort out any fee payments with candidates.

Manage requests

You can:

  • accept and reject requests
  • send auto-generated emails to candidates
  • update and cancel bookings
  • add and update subject-specific dates
  • set the capacity for events (number of bookings)
  • update and edit your profile
  • send reminders to confirm candidate attendance and manage cancellations
  • turn requests on and off
  • open and close dates to meet and manage demand

Added benefits of the service

The service offers additional benefits to help schools:

  • recruit prospective teachers to the profession
  • attract newly qualified teachers to your school
  • promote teacher training initiatives

As a school, you can also use the service to:

  • advertise teacher training opportunities
  • target specific types of candidates
  • manage candidates’ expectations
  • find out more about prospective teacher training applicants

DfE data collection

The service has also been designed to provide the Department for Education (DfE) with data to inform teacher recruitment policy and help you recruit more of the trainee teachers you need.

Published 18 August 2020 Contents