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References

Your principal and second referees should know you well enough to comment on your personal qualities and suitability for teaching

The reference is a vital part of your application. You are responsible for ensuring that your principal referee provides a reference. You cannot pay for your application or send it to us until a reference has been provided.

Who should be your principal referee?

If you are at university or college, or if you finished your studies within the last five years, your principal referee should ideally be a tutor who can comment on your academic achievements and your personal qualities.

If you are a joint-honours graduate and you want to teach one main subject at secondary or further education level, your principal referee should ideally be a tutor from the department where you studied that subject at degree level.

If you finished your studies more than five years ago or within the last five years and you cannot obtain a reference from a university or college tutor, your principal referee should be a responsible person who knows you well enough to write with authority about you, for example, an employer, a training officer or careers adviser. Your referee should be able to comment in detail about your suitability for your chosen PGCE or PGDE courses, and any training or study you have done recently.

Some training providers may have specific requirements about who they expect to write your reference. You should find out your chosen training providers requirements before nominating a principal referee.

Your principal referee must ordinarily write your reference in English. However, your reference may be written in Welsh if you are applying only to training providers in Wales.

Who should be your second referee?

Your second referee must be a responsible person who knows you, and who can provide a character reference for you and comment on your suitability for teaching. You do not need to ask your second referee to provide a reference on your application. Training providers will contact your second referee if they want a second reference.

Who must not be your referee?

You must not choose family members, friends, partners or ex-partners as your principal or second referee. If we find this to be the case, your application may be cancelled.

Providing your referees' details

Before entering the details for your principal and second referees, you should check that the other sections of your application have been checked, saved and marked as complete. These are:-


  • personal details
  • additional information (UK applicants only)
  • choices
  • education
  • personal statement.

When these sections have been marked as complete, you should enter the following details for your principal and second referees:-


  • their names
  • their relationships to you (for example tutor, lecturer, careers adviser or employer)
  • their addresses
  • their telephone numbers, including the international dialling codes
  • their fax numbers, if they have one, including the international dialling codes
  • their email addresses.

You must enter the name, relationship to you, postal address and email address for both your referees, before you can record the referees' details section as complete. It is important that you provide as much information as possible, as we or the training providers may wish to contact your referees for further information about you.

How to obtain your reference

When you have marked all the sections of your application as complete, including the 'View all' and 'Check form' sections, you can email your principal referee from the Apply system to request a reference. When you have sent this email, you cannot change any information in your application, except your referee details, until after we have processed it. The Apply system allows you to change the details for your principal referee and, if necessary, send another email request for a reference to a new email address. You can also request a reference from an alternative principal referee.

We send you an email when your referee agrees to provide a reference and another one when a reference has been provided. You can check the progress towards the provision of your reference by logging back into your application and looking at the reference history log.

If no reference is provided within 14 days of your original email request, we send an automated reminder email to your principal referee, but you should also contact your referee independently to find out the current situation. After we have sent our automated reminder email you can log back into the reference section of your application at any time to send a standard email reminder to your referee. You cannot send more than one reminder in any 24-hour period.

You can only pay for your application and send it to us after you have received our email to tell you that your principal referee has provided a reference. You cannot read your reference.

Reference history log

The reference history log records all the actions taken to obtain a reference from your principal referee. The log includes dates for the following:


  • saving your referees' details on your application
  • your email to your principal referee to request a reference
  • confirmation that your principal referee has agreed or declined to provide a reference
  • our automated reminder email to your principal referee
  • all your reminder emails to your principal referee