References question..

[NDA]

Mrs NDA has recently been appointed as a Governor at a local school - a moderately thankless task.

The school is currently advertising for a new Head and has received several applications - ALL of which have had references taken up by the school in advance of any interview.

Is this normal?!

When I ran my business, you'd advertise, interview, offer a job and then, only then, take up references. The job offer being 'subject to references'.

Mrs NDA says it doesn't work like that at schools. Schools take up full references before any interview.

Could that be true?!

[Robscim]

Yep!

In my experience!

Rob

[rog007]

Very normal; it's a waste of resources if you interview, then have to say no due to an inconsistency or such like in a reference.

[NDA]

That's interesting - thanks for the replies.

In most jobs, if you had a future (potential) employer contacting you about one of your staff to have a reference on them, it would be very awkward.... Obviously not the case in teaching.

[rog007]

Assuming it's a state run school, and assuming the applicants are not currently Heads, then they will be on a programme of development to get them to Headship so their current boss will know this and in fact be encouraging them to apply, so no issues.

If they're in the independent sector, where QTS and QHT are not mandatory, then it could be possible for applicants to be moving without their current boss knowing. However, in teaching, this is unlikely.

[NDA]

Thanks for the follow up - very useful and has cleared up some confusion.