DBS Checks for Schools and Nurseries: A Practical Guide

Almost everyone working in a school or nursery — whatever their qualifications — needs an enhanced DBS check with a children’s barred list check. That sentence covers the common case, and the rest of this page covers everything that makes it more complicated: who needs which level, why your old certificate may not transfer, what the Update Service actually does, and what schools must record.

We run these checks continuously as part of placing staff in London settings, so this is written from the practical end — the things that delay a start date rather than the things that read well in a policy document.

The four levels, and which one applies

Level	What it shows	Typical use in education
Basic	Unspent convictions and conditional cautions	Rarely sufficient for school or nursery roles
Standard	Spent and unspent convictions, cautions, reprimands, warnings, subject to filtering	Some roles with no direct child contact
Enhanced	As Standard, plus any information a police force reasonably considers relevant	Roles involving children but not meeting the regulated activity test
Enhanced with barred list check	As Enhanced, plus whether the person is barred from working with children	The standard requirement for teachers, teaching assistants, nursery practitioners and most school staff

The barred list element is the part people overlook. An enhanced check without it does not tell the employer the one thing that is legally decisive, and the two are not interchangeable.

What counts as regulated activity

The barred list check is only permitted — and is required — where the role amounts to regulated activity with children. Broadly, that means unsupervised activities such as teaching, training, instructing, caring for or supervising children, carried out regularly.

“Regularly” has a specific meaning: once a week or more, on four or more days in any thirty-day period, or overnight. Work in a school or nursery is also treated as regulated activity when done frequently in that setting, even where the role is not teaching.

In practice, if someone is working with children in a school or nursery on an ongoing basis, assume enhanced plus barred list and check the exceptions rather than the rule.

How long does a DBS check last?

A DBS check has no official expiry date. There is no statutory period after which a certificate stops being valid, and the DBS does not set one. This is the single most misunderstood thing about the whole system, so it is worth being precise about what it actually means.

A certificate is accurate only on the day it was issued. It is a snapshot, not a licence. Something could appear on someone’s record the following week and the certificate would look exactly the same. That is why the question “how long is a DBS valid for?” does not have a number as its answer.

So what decides whether it is accepted?

The employer. Each school, nursery or setting sets its own policy on how recent a check must be and when re-checks are required. In practice:

• Many settings in education treat three years as a working guideline for re-checking, though this is policy rather than law.
• Some will not accept a certificate issued for a different employer at all, regardless of its age.
• Some accept any certificate if you are registered with the Update Service, because they can verify it is still current online.

So an old certificate is not “expired” — it may simply not be accepted. The practical distinction matters, because candidates often assume a recent certificate guarantees them a start date, and it does not.

The only way to make a certificate keep working

Register for the DBS Update Service within 30 days of your certificate being issued. From then on an employer can check its status online in moments, and that status check is what gives a certificate ongoing usefulness. Without it, every new employer is likely to start a fresh application.

Miss the 30-day window and the certificate can never be added. You would have to wait for your next one. For anyone doing supply or agency work this is the difference between starting next week and starting next month.

Six things that catch people out

1. You cannot apply for your own enhanced check

Enhanced checks must be requested through an employer or a registered body. An individual can only obtain a Basic check for themselves. This is the most common misunderstanding among candidates, who sometimes delay applying for work while waiting for a certificate they cannot order.

2. A DBS certificate is not a licence, and it does not transfer automatically

A certificate is a snapshot of a particular date, issued for a particular role and employer. It does not follow you to a new job by default. Whether a new employer accepts an existing certificate is their decision, within their own policy — and many will not, unless you are on the Update Service.

3. The Update Service is the single most useful thing a candidate can do

For a modest annual subscription, the Update Service lets an employer check the current status of your existing certificate online, usually within moments, instead of waiting for a fresh application. For anyone doing supply or agency work across multiple settings, it is the difference between starting on Monday and starting in three weeks.

The catch, and it is unforgiving: you must join within 30 days of your certificate being issued. Miss that window and you cannot add that certificate later — you must wait until your next one. We tell every candidate this on day one, because the number of people who learn it too late is remarkable.

4. Certificates have no official expiry date

There is no statutory renewal period. A setting’s own policy decides when a re-check is required, and policies vary widely. The absence of an expiry date is not the same as a certificate remaining valid indefinitely in the eyes of an employer.

5. Only you receive the certificate

Since 2013 the certificate is sent to the applicant, not the employer. The employer must see the original document. If you lose it, there is no employer copy to fall back on — you will need a new application unless you are on the Update Service.

6. Time lived overseas needs separate evidence

A DBS check only covers UK records. Anyone who has lived abroad for a significant period will usually also need a certificate of good conduct or equivalent from that country. This is routinely the longest lead time in the whole process, and it is worth starting before anything else.

What schools and nurseries must record

The vetting rules below sit within Part Three of KCSIE.

Schools are required to keep a single central record of pre-appointment checks. It typically records identity verification, the enhanced DBS and its date, the barred list check, right to work, qualifications where required for the role, prohibition from teaching checks for teaching staff, and any overseas checks.

Two points matter more than the rest:

• Knowingly employing a barred person in regulated activity is a criminal offence, as is working in regulated activity while barred. This is not a procedural matter.
• For agency staff, the agency carries out the checks and the setting must obtain written confirmation that they have been done. The setting does not re-run them, but it does have to evidence that it satisfied itself. A good agency provides this without being asked.

How long it takes, realistically

Enhanced checks are often returned within a couple of weeks, but the range is wide and the variables are mostly outside anyone’s control — how many police forces need to be consulted, how complete the application was, and whether addresses over the last five years can be matched. Incomplete address history is the most common avoidable cause of delay.

If you are job-hunting, start the process at the point you start applying, not at the point you receive an offer. And if you already hold a certificate issued in the last month, join the Update Service today.

Frequently asked questions