Prohibition orders are made under section 141B of the Education Act 2002. They stop a person carrying out teaching work in schools, sixth form colleges, 16 to 19 academies, relevant youth accommodation and children's homes in England (KCSIE 2026, paragraph 332).
"Teaching work" has a legal meaning: planning, delivering, assessing and reporting on lessons, unless done under the direction and supervision of a qualified teacher. So whether a check is legally required depends on what the person does, not their job title. A teaching assistant working under a teacher's direction is not doing teaching work; an HLTA or cover supervisor teaching without that supervision may be.
Every school must make sure anyone it employs to do teaching work is not subject to a prohibition order, an interim order, or a current sanction from the old General Teaching Council for England (paragraph 313). A prohibited person must not be appointed to any role involving teaching work (paragraph 333). The check is on Check a teacher's record, and the result goes on the single central record.
If a school learns that a current member of staff has an interim prohibition order, they must not carry out teaching work while the case continues (paragraph 463).
A prohibition order is different from a section 128 direction, which bars someone from managing an independent school or academy, and from being on the barred list.