Your reference

Requesting and providing a reference

We ask applicants to obtain the agreement of the persons they want to nominate as their principal and second referees before entering any referee details on their applications.

When applicants have completed all the other sections of their application, they enter the names and contact details for their principal and second referees in the reference section. If you have been nominated as a principal referee, the applicant will send you an email through the GTTR to ask for your reference. This email gives you a username and password to access the referees' system on the GTTR website where you can enter your reference and send it to us. If you are involved in delivering a course that the applicant is currently taking, we also ask you to provide basic details about the course and your assessment of the applicant's predicted results.

When you have agreed to provide a reference using the referees' system you can enter your reference straightaway or log out and log in again later using the same username and password to enter the reference at your convenience. The referees' system allows you to view all the information on the application and provides detailed guidance to help you write your reference and send it to us.

When we receive your reference, we send you an email to confirm that it has been added to the application.

If we do not receive your reference within 14 days of sending the email request to you, we will automatically send you a reminder by email. After we have sent you this email the applicant can send their own email reminders through the GTTR application system. They can only send one reminder in each 24-hour period. Applicants cannot pay for their applications and send them to us until a reference has been provided.

If the applicant did not obtain your agreement before naming you as a principal referee and you do not wish to write a reference, you can tell us by using the referees' system and we will ask the applicant to nominate an alternative referee. We will send you an email confirming that you do not need to provide a reference, so you do not waste time and effort unnecessarily.

Writing your reference

When writing your reference, please try to include the following information about the applicant to help training providers with the selection process.


  • Their academic achievement and potential, including predicted results or performance
  • Their ability to communicate clearly in spoken and written standard English
  • Their suitability for the courses or subjects they have applied for
  • Any factors that could influence, or could have influenced, their performance
  • Their personal qualities, such as motivation, powers of analysis, communication skills and independent thought
  • Their suitability for teaching
  • Any health or personal circumstances that affect their application. You must obtain the applicant's agreement before you include this kind of information in your reference
  • Other interests or activities.

You do not need to repeat information in your reference that the applicant has provided in their application unless you want to comment on it.

You can enter your reference and predicted results information directly into the boxes on the referees' system or you can copy and paste the text from other documents. We recommend that you use the copy and paste method. You have 47 lines for your reference and a single line for your predicted results information. The amount of text you can enter depends on the layout and formatting that you use.

If you are pasting text from another document, please check carefully what is shown in the reference box after saving your reference because some characters and formatting from different word processing packages may not paste correctly into the application and Unfortunately, you cannot use italics, bold type, underlining or foreign characters, such as accents, in your reference or predicted results information. These types of formatting and foreign characters will be removed when you paste and save your text.

When you write personal comments about an applicant please remember that, under the terms of the Data Protection Act, the applicant is entitled to ask for a copy of the reference and any other personal information that we have about them.

If you are writing a reference for an international applicant, please write in English. If the applicant's first language is not English, please comment on his or her ability to write and speak English, and say if any of his or her studies were taught in English.

If we have reason to believe that the application, including the reference, has any information missing, or has any false and misleading information, we and the training providers have the right to cancel the application and withdraw any offers without refunding the application fee.

Having problems or need more information?

If you are having difficulty in entering your reference or sending it to us or you need more information about the process, please contact our Customer Service Unit.