How to Choose a SEND Recruitment Agency: A Checklist for Schools

At a glance

• Specialism is the hard filter — under the updated SEND Code of Practice and the £200m teacher training programme announced in January 2026, your supplier's SEND depth is a quality issue, not a preference.
• Two compliance proxies worth checking: trade-body accreditation — REC Audited Education or APSCo Compliance+, ideally both — and the Government Commercial Agency's supply teachers framework, now RM6376, which went live on 30 April 2026 and is mandatory for single and multi-academy trusts from September 2026.
• Ask about safeguarding the way Keeping Children Safe in Education 2025 does — DBS, two references, single central record contributions, and the supply-teacher allegation process from paragraphs 377–380.
• Ask about training, mark-up transparency, and how candidates are matched. Ask the agency to be honest about what they do not do well.

Contents

• Why a specialist SEND recruitment agency is now a policy-aligned choice
• The checklist: ten things to ask any SEND recruitment agency
• A closer look at safeguarding
• Reading the answers: what good looks like
• Frequently asked questions

Choosing a SEND recruitment agency in 2026 is no longer a back-office procurement decision. The Schools White Paper Every Child Achieving and Thriving, the £1.6 billion Inclusive Mainstream Fund landing in school budgets this year, and the updated SEND Code of Practice all make the same point: the staff who walk into your classrooms, including supply staff, now sit inside an inclusion duty the Department for Education is taking seriously. A SEND recruitment agency is part of how you meet that duty.

We are a SEND recruitment agency ourselves, so we are biased. If you want to skip the reading, our schools team is here. But this article is written to work even if you do not pick us — the criteria below help any school evaluate any agency on the same terms.

Generic "how to find a recruitment agency" guides are fine as far as they go. The problem is that SEND staffing is a different job. A supply teacher who can hold a Year 4 lesson together for a day is not necessarily someone you want supporting a non-verbal student with profound and multiple learning difficulties, or a child whose autism diagnosis means transitions need careful handling. The right SEND recruitment agency recruits accordingly. The wrong one treats SEND as just another vacancy code.

Why a specialist SEND recruitment agency is now a policy-aligned choice

Three policy shifts have made specialism more than a preference.

The first is the SEND Code of Practice update following the Schools White Paper published on 23 February 2026. On 16 January 2026 the Department for Education announced a £200 million SEND teacher training programme over the current spending period. The Code will set an expectation that all staff in schools, colleges and early years settings receive SEND and inclusion training, with rollout beginning in 2027. If your agency's candidates are already trained to that standard, you are ahead of the curve. If not, you will be backfilling the gap from your own CPD budget.

The second is the Inclusive Mainstream Fund (IMF). The DfE published the methodology on 25 March 2026: £400 million per year to mainstream schools, £83 million to 16-19 providers, £47 million to early years. Schools must publish an inclusion strategy by 31 December 2026. Choosing a SEND-vetted staffing partner is part of giving that strategy operational teeth.

The third is the new procurement framework for supply teachers. RM6238 — the old Crown Commercial Service framework — has been superseded by RM6376 (Supply Teachers and Education Recruitment), run by the new Government Commercial Agency. It went live on 30 April 2026, runs to 29 April 2029, and from September 2026 the 2026 Academy Trusts Handbook makes it mandatory for single and multi-academy trusts procuring supply staff. RM6376 also introduces a tiered supplier fee cap, which we unpack in question 3.

None of this means panic-switching suppliers. It does mean the questions you ask a SEND recruitment agency in 2026 are not the questions you would have asked in 2022.

The checklist: ten things to ask any SEND recruitment agency

The checklist below works for any agency — including us. Run a shortlist of three through these ten questions and the answers sort themselves into a decision.

1. What percentage of your placements are in SEND settings?

The sharpest filter. A generalist agency with a SEND desk is not the same thing as a SEND-specialist agency. Ask for the actual proportion, and ask which settings — special schools, alternative provisions, mainstream with SEND units, pupil referral units, independent specialist colleges. A SEND recruitment agency that lives in this space answers in seconds.

2. Are you accredited by the REC and APSCo — and to what standard?

Two professional bodies set the standards for recruitment agencies in the UK: the Recruitment and Employment Confederation (REC) and the Association of Professional Staffing Companies (APSCo). Members of either must pass a compliance assessment and follow a code of professional practice. Some agencies go further and hold an audited standard — REC Audited Education on the REC side, or APSCo Compliance+ on the APSCo side — both independently audited against safeguarding and legal requirements. (Five Education holds both.) The REC's own guide for schools, Putting Pupils First, is a useful sector-standard reference. If a SEND recruitment agency cannot point to REC or APSCo membership, ask why.

3. Are you on the relevant Government Commercial framework — now RM6376?

The framework is one of the most reliable compliance proxies available. Agencies admitted to RM6376 have been independently assessed against safeguarding and operational standards, framework terms include AWR (Agency Workers Regulations) 12-week parity and capped temp-to-perm transfer fees, and the supplier fee is capped by role — up to £38 per day for SEND education support staff, up to £45 per day for teachers, with separate tiers for STEM, senior, admin and other roles (Tes, 27 April 2026). Ask any shortlisted agency whether they are on RM6376 today. Admissions are still working through the market, so you want the current answer for your suppliers, not yesterday's marketing copy.

4. What SEND-specific training do you provide to candidates, and is it free to them?

A SEND recruitment agency that takes its specialism seriously invests in candidate CPD. The menu worth asking about includes Team Teach (de-escalation and positive behaviour support), Makaton, Speech, Language and Communication Needs (SLCN), trauma-informed practice, Understanding Autism, ADHD awareness, and Profound and Multiple Learning Difficulties (PMLD) support. Ask whether training is free to candidates or whether the agency passes the cost onto the worker — the answer tells you a lot about how the agency views its candidate base. Our own CPD menu is one example of what good looks like.

5. How do you vet candidates for SEND suitability specifically — not just general teaching competence?

Every legitimate SEND recruitment agency runs enhanced DBS and right-to-work checks. The differentiator is what they do on top of the legal baseline. Ask about face-to-face or video interviews, SEND-specific references, and how they assess temperament — patience, resilience, willingness to adapt — for the children candidates will be placed with.

6. Who is my dedicated consultant, and what happens at 7am when I need cover?

This is where models differ most. A dedicated consultant who knows your school, students and behaviour policy is a different proposition from a call-centre that rotates the phone. Ask who you would speak to. Ask whether they have worked in or with SEND settings. Ask their morning fill rate in practice. The answer at 7am is the test.

7. How transparent are you about your mark-up and the candidate's pay rate?

The DfE's supply teacher research published in September 2024 explored the gap between school day rates and candidate take-home pay. Mark-ups vary and are sometimes hotly disputed. A SEND recruitment agency you want to work with will show you the school cost, the candidate pay rate, and what sits in between, on request. Under IMF spending discipline this matters more than it did last year.

8. How do you handle safeguarding allegations against a supply teacher?

The statutory guidance Keeping Children Safe in Education 2025, in force from 1 September 2025, makes paragraphs 377 to 380 of Part 4 directly relevant to supply staff. A school must not simply stop using a supply teacher because of a safeguarding concern — the allegation has to be investigated, the Local Authority Designated Officer (LADO) has to be involved, and the agency has to be part of that process. Ask the agency to walk you through their procedure. If they cannot, they have not read the same statutory guidance you are working to.

9. What are your terms on transfer fees, AWR, and unsuitable placements?

RM6376 caps temp-to-perm transfer fees and requires the four-week no-fee notice and twelve-week pay-rate parity rule under AWR. Ask the agency to state their terms in writing. Ask what happens if a placement is unsuitable — do they replace at no charge, on the same day? A SEND recruitment agency confident in its matching stands behind it.

10. Where do you genuinely not do well?

The most revealing question. A good SEND recruitment agency will tell you the truth about its limits. Our honest answer is that our strongest area is SEND support staff — teaching assistants, learning support assistants, higher-level teaching assistants, 1:1 specialists. Emergency general teaching cover is not our specialism, and if that is what a school needs, we will say so. An agency that claims to be excellent at everything is, in practice, excellent at very little.

If a SEND recruitment agency cannot answer ten reasonable questions about its own practice, that is the answer.

A closer look at safeguarding

Safeguarding is non-negotiable in any school setting and carries extra weight in SEND environments, where students may be non-verbal, have communication differences, or be particularly vulnerable to harm they cannot easily report. KCSIE 2025 is the statutory floor; your SEND recruitment agency should operate well above it.

The checks that should be in place for every candidate before they set foot in your school:

• Enhanced DBS with barred list check, conducted via the Disclosure and Barring Service and kept current through the DBS Update Service.
• Identity verification from current photographic ID and proof of address.
• Two professional references, verified by the agency. Where two cannot be obtained, the agency should escalate before placement, not after.
• Full employment history with explanations for any gaps, captured before assignment.
• Right-to-work confirmation following Home Office guidance.
• Prohibition from teaching check via the Teaching Regulation Agency where applicable, and for early years, disqualification checks.
• Single central record contribution — written confirmation from the agency of every check carried out, in the format your single central record needs.
• Overseas police check or equivalent where the candidate has lived or worked outside the UK.

These are the minimums any compliant agency commits to under the Conduct of Employment Agencies and Employment Businesses Regulations 2003, and the standards REC and APSCo members are audited against. KCSIE 2025 places a duty on schools to obtain written confirmation from agencies that the same checks have been carried out as the school would carry out on its own staff. Ask for that confirmation before placement. Keep it on file.

The SEND-specific layer on top is harder to standardise but easier to spot. Have the candidates worked in SEND settings before? Has the agency assessed temperament, not just qualifications? Will the consultant tell you, frankly, when a candidate is being placed in a setting that pushes the edge of their experience? An agency that volunteers that information is operating at the right standard.

Reading the answers: what good looks like

Once you have asked the ten questions, the pattern is usually clear within an hour. Three signals separate the agencies worth shortlisting from the ones that are not.

The first is specificity. A SEND recruitment agency worth choosing answers with numbers, named processes and named training courses. Poor agencies answer with adjectives — robust, rigorous, thorough — and little else. If you have to ask twice for a percentage, the percentage is not what you want it to be.

The second is honesty about limits. A SEND recruitment agency that tells you what it is not good at is more likely to be telling the truth about what it is good at. Be wary of the agency that does everything excellently.

The third is continuity. The named consultant who took your initial enquiry should still be the named person you speak to at 7am six months later. Agencies that churn through account handlers cannot build the school knowledge that makes SEND matching work.

If you are weighing this decision against a different one — whether to use an agency at all versus an online booking platform — we have written about that trade-off separately in a companion piece on supply agencies versus automated booking platforms. Short version: they answer different jobs, and for SEND specialist staff the agency model has the edge on vetting depth and consultant judgement.

Picking a SEND recruitment agency is not a one-off transaction. It is a partnership decision that, done well, takes a recurring pressure off you for years. Run the ten questions, read the answers carefully, and trust the agency that gives specific answers and an honest map of its own limits. If you would like to talk to ours, our schools team is happy to take the call.

Frequently asked questions

What is the difference between a SEND recruitment agency and a generalist education agency?

A SEND recruitment agency specialises in placing staff into special schools, SEND units in mainstream schools, alternative provisions and other specialist settings. Candidates are vetted, trained and matched specifically for SEND suitability. A generalist agency recruits across all education roles — primary cover, secondary subject teachers, office staff — and SEND is one segment of a broader desk. The difference shows in candidate quality, training depth and consultant knowledge of SEND settings.

How do I know a SEND recruitment agency is REC- or APSCo-accredited?

Ask directly, and check the REC's online member directory or confirm APSCo membership and Compliance+ status with the agency. Members display the relevant logo and should share their membership number on request. Agencies holding REC Audited Education or APSCo Compliance+ accreditation will say so explicitly — both are separate, audited standards above baseline membership.

Should my school use the Government Commercial Agency framework?

If your school or academy trust follows public procurement rules, the framework route is the cleanest — pre-vetted suppliers, framework-protected terms on transfer fees and AWR compliance, and a tiered supplier fee cap. RM6376 went live on 30 April 2026 and supersedes RM6238; from September 2026 the 2026 Academy Trusts Handbook makes it mandatory for single and multi-academy trusts procuring supply staff. Even outside formal procurement obligations, framework membership is a useful compliance signal.

What questions should I ask in a first meeting with a SEND recruitment agency?

Use the ten-question checklist above as your agenda. The short version: percentage of SEND placements, REC and APSCo accreditation and RM6376 framework status, free training menu, vetting beyond DBS, named consultant and morning cover model, mark-up transparency, safeguarding allegation procedure, transfer fee and AWR terms, and an honest account of where the agency does not excel.