Advertisements Ensuring Opportunities for Flexible Route NQTs
Renfrewshire Council · 3 February 2026
Back to Renfrewshire Council Joint Negotiating Committee for Teaching Staff — 3 February 2026 and its agenda
Text extracted from the council's PDF. Layout and reading order may differ from the original.
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. Agenda Item .......... Renfrewshire Joint Negotiating Committee for Teachers To: Renfrewshire Joint Negotiating Committee for Teachers On: 3rd February, 2026 Report by Joint Secretary (Teachers’ Side) Advertisements: Ensuring Opportunities for Flexible Route NQTs 1. Background The GTCS offers two pathways to achieve full registration and entry to a teaching career after the student years: the Teacher Induction Scheme (TIS) and the Flexible Route (FR). The first and more common access is via the Teacher Induction scheme which offers a guaranteed post for an academic session in a school. Most new recruits opt for the TIS which has the benefit of being a funded and mentored placement in a single school. The second pathway is through the Flexible Route which provides a way to achieve full registration with the GTCS and qualifies successful participants to teach in Scotland. The FR has many benefits for some aspiring teachers: It allows access to the profession to those who opt to work part-time, many for reasons of childcare, and many of whom are women It is the only pathway for foreign students, not eligible for the TIS, to become fully registered in Scotland It allows participants to choose a local authority or school in which they can work (some for family, financial, accommodation or travel reasons) It allows those who are already fully registered in one or more subject(s)/categories to gain professional registration in an additional subject It allows teachers who may need extensions to their TIS as a result of ill health, bereavement or other difficulties, to qualify. The Flexible Route therefore attracts a diverse range of applicants - precisely because of its flexibility- and it relies on those provisionally registered teachers having access to supply work since FR probationers are not eligible to be appointed to permanent posts. Probationers on the FR can only undertake fixed term supply employment to gain full registration.
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. Most provisionally registered teachers on the FR begin their careers in supply posts and must be interviewed to be included on Local Authority supply lists. Before gaining full registration the requisite number of teaching days must be accrued and it is important therefore that Local Authorities are employing this group of probationers and that opportunities are open to those on the FR. That is particularly urgent as regulations require probation to be completed within three years of first registration. Moreover, Renfrewshire Council occasionally recommends that some probationers convert from the TIS to the FR in the expectation that they will complete their probationary period within another Local Authority. There is an assumption that other Local Authority supply lists will be open to them. It has come to light that a recent advert for supply teachers for Renfrewshire was worded such that it was open only to “fully qualified teachers” which excluded provisionally registered teachers on the FR programme. At a time when schools are reporting a lack of supply provision it is important that no eligible applicant feels excluded from applying to be added to Renfrewshire’s supply register and that Renfrewshire is maximising all possible recruits. 2. Recommendation That whenever adverts are posted for supply teachers that they are inclusive of Flexible Route probationers. Adverts for supply staff should explicitly state that ‘suitably qualified’, including Flexible Route applicants- rather than ‘fully qualified’ applicants- are eligible for supply work in Renfrewshire. That Renfrewshire Council reconsiders its practice of disallowing probationers whom it recommends should convert to FR, the opportunity to undertake supply work in Renfrewshire, rather than closing off the opportunity and imposing the need for them to seek employment in other Local Authorities.