You are here:
Seeking references for school staff
Understand how to seek references appropriately. We explain what is set out in statutory guidance, how to make reference requests and what information to ask for.
- Conducting senior leadership team recruitment interviews
- Holding an interview: your step-by-step guide
- Interview lessons in recruitment: advice
- Interview lessons: observation forms
- Recruitment interview record sheets and response scoring systems
- Reference request forms for school staff
- Reference request templates for volunteers
- Seeking references for volunteers
- Shortlisting candidates: template and guidance
- Unsuccessful job applicants: template letters
More from The Key

Pupil mental health: deepening understanding
Are you looking to deepen your staff's understanding of mental health, including anxiety, depression, self-harm and suicidal ideation? Safeguarding Training Centre has the resources you need.
Evidence-led training courses that make it easy to upskill staff, anytime, anywhere.
CPD Toolkit is the most effective way to virtually deliver evidence-led training and support the professional development of your staff. Downloadable courses and online 5-minute summaries provide flexibility for training, whether staff are participating as skeleton staff in-school, via video call or individually at their own pace.
- In the news: Your weekly round-up for 19 - 26 February 2021 26 Feb 2021 08:00 New
- In the news: Your weekly round-up for 12 - 19 February 2021 19 Feb 2021 08:00 New
- In the news: Your weekly round-up for 5 - 12 February 2021 12 Feb 2021 08:00 New
- In the news: Your weekly round-up for 29 January - 5 February 2021 5 Feb 2021 08:00 New
- In the news: Your weekly round-up for 22 - 29 January 2021 29 Jan 2021 08:00
The Key has taken great care in publishing this article. However, some of the article's content and information may come from or link to third party sources whose quality, relevance, accuracy, completeness, currency and reliability we do not guarantee. Accordingly, we will not be held liable for any use of or reliance placed on this article's content or the links or downloads it provides. This article may contain information sourced from public sector bodies and licensed under the Open Government Licence v3.0.