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James Knight
"I applaud the development of the Schools Recruitment Service. The provision of a world class workforce is the single most important factor in delivering our aspirations for children. The Schools Recruitment Service can make a significant contribution to this, playing a valuable role in helping us to reach our long-term goals for the education of our children."

- Schools Minister Jim Knight


Welcome to the information website for the new Schools Recruitment Service

Due to launch in early 2009, the new online service is being developed to provide schools and local authorities in England with a better process for recruiting permanent teaching and support staff. 

Overall it will offer them a more efficient, standardised application system, automation of routine administrative processes, better intelligence around candidate behaviour and attraction, and informed media performance.  The result will be a more efficient, time effective and economical recruitment process.

Applicants will benefit from the new facility too. They will be able to take advantage of a more user-friendly, standardised system enabling easy download, completion and return of all forms.

The service has been developed after discussions with a wide range of stakeholders. Representatives from local authorities, schools, suppliers and departmental colleagues have all been involved in the development process. 

And now the offer is open to local authorities and schools nationally to become early adopters of the new system and benefit from financial support during the first two years of the contract. Independent schools will be welcome to use the service but will not benefit from departmental funding support.

If you are interested in becoming an early adopter, please complete the information form.

Schools recruitment - the facts

  • 450,000 teachers work in over 20,000 maintained schools in England
  • 150,000 vacancies estimated per year with turnover around 20%
  • Typically, secondary schools have 10-20 teaching vacancies per year and primary schools have 1.6
  • Recruitment of head teachers has become increasingly difficult - re-advertising for secondary head teacher posts has doubled over 10 years.

Service Features

The Schools Recruitment Service will feature an applicant tracking tool which will allow local authorities and schools to:

  • improve their market knowledge of teacher recruitment
  • track the candidate from application to appointment stage
  • post vacancies, book and formulate advertisements
  • filter, track and respond to applications
  • evaluate the success of recruitment campaigns.

Benefits to users:

  • Improved schools recruitment processes both now and for the future
  • Savings to schools and local authorities on time, resources and money
  • Improved market intelligence, better targeted advertising
  • Better matching of candidates to jobs
  • Better service for applicants - efficient, user-friendly and standardised
  • Sustainability - the online service will significantly reduce paper usage.

Some comments from our early adopters and schools/local authority stakeholders:

"Best thing to hit schools from the Department in years" ... Birmingham

"It's a good idea and definitely the sort of thing we need" ... Southend

"Very interested in the service" ... Lancashire

"I wish I were the decision maker because I'd sign up now" ... Warwickshire

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