Tell us about hiring at Maritime Academy Trust

We are a Trust of Primary Schools in Medway, Kent, and South East London, and we promote a culture of high standards and excellence. This means our hiring process has to be thorough in finding only the best people to help maximise our student potential across our schools.

Being in the Education industry, why are reference checks so important to you?

Reference checks are incredibly important for us to be in line with our Safer recruitment policy, to safeguard ourselves and students. We also need to ensure that we are recruiting high quality teachers and support staff. Under Ofsted, the reference checks have to be transparent and robust, no matter what the position is we are hiring for.

How long would it take you to collect references before?

Typically it could take 2-3 weeks for references to come back, this often involved lots of chasing and manual admin work. 

What was the catalyst for change? 

Unfortunately, if we do not have two satisfactory references we have to delay the individual’s start date which negatively impacts the school and the individual. 

Why did you choose RefNow?

We needed a system that would help decrease admin work and secure references quickly. We felt that RefNow was user friendly and we liked how we could adapt its features to suit our organisation. 

How have you benefited from using RefNow?

The team has helped us customise our reference requests to align with criteria set out by the Government’s Keeping Children Safe in Education and Safer Recruitment guidance. The reduction in admin time and time spent chasing the references has meant we are getting people out to work much quicker.

How have you found the process of requesting references and tracking their progress?

We have found this process really easy and beneficial for us to see the progress of gaining the references back and understanding the timeline. 

Are there any future plans for how Maritime Academy Trust uses RefNow?

RefNow will continue to be a part of the pre-employment process for our schools.

If you could summarise RefNow in one sentence for any other organisations in the Education industry, what would you say?

RefNow has helped us make our reference requests more efficient.