Safer Recruitment for Senior Leadership Appointments

A practical guide for proprietors, boards and governing bodies

Safer recruitment gaps are found more often in senior appointments than in any other. Not because boards are careless, but because nobody enjoys asking a distinguished candidate for their paperwork, and because the person who normally runs the process is frequently the person being replaced.

Many proprietors tell us they discovered the gap during an audit rather than at the time. The head they appointed was entirely suitable, and the school still had a finding to explain because the evidence wasn’t there.

Keeping Children Safe in Education 2026 came into force on 1 September 2026, and it strengthens expectations in this area. Check the current text against your own procedures rather than relying on any summary, including this one.

It starts at the advert, not at the offer

Safer recruitment isn’t a set of checks bolted on at the end. It’s a way of running the whole process, and the early stages matter more than boards expect.

Say in the advert and the candidate pack that the post is subject to an enhanced DBS check with barred list information, that the school is committed to safeguarding, and what the process involves. That statement deters the wrong applicants before they apply, which is the point.

Use your own application form rather than accepting CVs. A CV lets a candidate present their history selectively. An application form asks for a full chronological employment history, which is what allows you to spot and explore gaps.

Ask for a self-disclosure at shortlisting, so candidates can tell you about anything relevant before checks begin.

Online searches on shortlisted candidates

This has moved from something schools were encouraged to consider to a clear expectation as part of pre-appointment due diligence on shortlisted candidates.

Three things make it work properly.

Tell candidates at shortlisting that online searches will be carried out. This is not optional and it’s the part most often missed.

Have a documented, consistent process. Who does it, what they search, what they’re looking for, and how findings are recorded. Applying it inconsistently across candidates is worse than not doing it.

Be clear what’s relevant. You’re looking for publicly available information bearing on suitability to work with children. Not opinions you disagree with, and not anything that would take you into discrimination territory. Ideally the search is done by someone who isn’t on the panel, with only relevant findings passed on.

Record that the search was done for every shortlisted candidate, including where nothing was found.

References

Obtain them directly from the referee. Never accept an open testimonial, a letter the candidate hands over, or a summary supplied by an agency or search provider.

At least two, including the current or most recent employer, and always from settings where the candidate has worked with children. For a headship appointment, the referee should be the person who held them to account, which means the chair, the proprietor or the trust rather than a colleague.

Ask about suitability to work with children, and about any disciplinary matters or safeguarding concerns, subject to the usual position on how such matters are handled.

Verify the referee independently. Use contact details you’ve obtained yourself rather than only the ones the candidate supplied, and check the person holds the role they claim to.

Explore every gap in employment history and record the explanation. And follow up a bland written reference with a phone call, recorded. A senior appointment deserves fifteen minutes on the telephone.

The awkward conversation about a settlement

Occasionally a candidate has left a previous post under a settlement agreement, and boards find this difficult to handle.

The principle is straightforward: a settlement agreement cannot prevent a former employer from providing information about safeguarding concerns, and it should not be used to conceal them. If a reference is unusually thin or a departure is unexplained, ask directly.

Equally, a settlement is not evidence of anything on its own. People leave roles for many reasons and some of them are entirely to the person’s credit.

Where you have a concern, take advice rather than either dismissing it or acting on assumption.

At interview

Safeguarding belongs in the selection process, not only in the checks.

Include at least one question that tests safeguarding judgement rather than knowledge. Ask about employment gaps and about any reason for leaving that isn’t clear. And make sure someone on the panel is trained in safer recruitment, which for a headship appointment should be a given.

Record what was asked and what was said. In a senior appointment, the evidence of your process matters as much as the process itself.

Pre-appointment checks

Complete before the person starts, not afterwards.

• Enhanced DBS with barred list information
• Prohibition from teaching check, and where relevant the prohibition from management check for independent schools
• Identity and right to work
• Qualifications, where claimed or required
• Overseas checks where the candidate has lived or worked abroad
• Medical fitness where applicable
• Recording on the single central record

One change worth flagging: the removal of the supervision exemption from the definition of regulated activity means some roles and volunteers previously out of scope now fall within it. That’s a wider audit than a single appointment, and it’s worth checking your position rather than assuming.

Who does this when you’re appointing the headteacher?

This is the practical problem, and it’s why senior appointments have gaps.

Normally the head oversees safer recruitment. When the head is the vacancy, someone else has to. That’s usually the proprietor, the chair, or a business manager acting on their behalf, and it needs deciding at the start rather than assumed.

Whoever it is should be trained in safer recruitment. A proprietor who has never run the process is not the right person to be doing it unsupported for the most senior appointment the school makes.

Where you’re using a provider or a search firm, agree in writing which checks they hold and which remain yours. Your duty doesn’t transfer because someone else made the introduction, and “the agency handled it” is not an answer an inspector will accept.

From our experience

The most common gap in senior appointments is references taken by someone other than the school, usually a search provider, and accepted as a summary.

It’s understandable, it’s quicker, and it doesn’t meet the standard. Ten minutes on the phone to the previous chair would have closed it.

The second is the missing record. Checks were done, the appointment was sound, and nobody kept evidence. During a safeguarding audit, an appointment you can’t evidence is treated the same as one that wasn’t checked.

Many proprietors tell us they felt uncomfortable asking an experienced headteacher for documents. Every experienced headteacher expects to be asked, and a candidate who resents it has told you something useful.

A common misconception

“They’re a serving headteacher with an existing DBS, so the checks are essentially covered.”

A DBS certificate is a snapshot of one date, and it belongs to the check that was done, not to the person permanently.

More importantly, safer recruitment is not primarily about the DBS. It’s about the full picture: employment history explored, references taken directly from people who held them accountable, gaps explained, and a judgement made about suitability. A serving headteacher’s seniority is a reason for more rigour, not less, because the role carries unsupervised access to children and authority over everyone who might raise a concern.

The children in your school are entitled to the same standard of assurance about their headteacher as about anyone else in the building.

Questions for boards and proprietors

• Who is running safer recruitment for this appointment, and are they trained?
• Are we using our own application form and exploring every employment gap?
• Have we told shortlisted candidates that online searches will be carried out?
• Did we take references ourselves, from the person who held the candidate to account?
• Could we evidence the whole process from our own records today?

Our perspective

Safer recruitment for a headship appointment is the same process as for anyone else, run by different people under more time pressure, which is exactly why it needs deciding at the start.

Name who’s running it. Use your own application form. Tell candidates about online searches and do them consistently. Take references yourself from the right person. Explore the gaps. Complete every check before the start date and record all of it.

None of that slows a good appointment down, and it means the most consequential decision your board makes is one you can stand behind years later, for the children whose safety depends on it.