Additional registration is a way for teachers with registration in Primary, Secondary or Additional Support Needs (ASN) to add subjects or categories to their registration.
We set out 5 manifesto priorities as a call to action for politicians to respond to the challenges facing education today, in the run up to the May 2026 Scottish Parliament elections.
Our first priority was ‘understanding and valuing teaching’ and we called for greater support to allow teachers to expand their registration categories. Teachers need access to high-quality ongoing education opportunities to do this.
With the election now over, we continue to advocate to make additional registration more accessible to established teachers
Data from the Register
We have 3,354 registrants with additional registration. Between them, they have 3,672 additional registrations, with some individuals having 3 or 4 categories of registration. Most of these registrants are secondary teachers who have added secondary subjects.
While the Register remains relatively stable with over 80,000 registrants, we have seen a gradual and slow decline over the years.
We are also seeing declining registrations in particular subject areas such as Computing Science, German and Economics. Additionally, the number of provisionally registered teachers going on to become fully registered is gradually declining, with people leaving the profession for reasons other than retirement.
The combination of these issues suggests a need for a national teacher supply strategy: a plan for how the country is going to make sure there’s enough teachers now and in the future.
This should include actions to help teacher mobility, ensuring flexibility so that they can move within and across schools.
Additional registration, if it is supported well, is a good way for teachers to follow their interests, gain additional qualifications, and/or get the employment that they want where they want. It is also part of the solution to ensuring the maintenance of a broad curricular offer.
It can enable secondary teachers to expand their range of qualified subjects and primary teachers to work in the secondary context and vice versa. This is key action in helping the system’s teacher recruitment challenges.
Additional registration in action
Additional registration was previously known as ‘Professional (Additional) Registration’. To gain additional registration, there are 5 steps to follow.
- Be fully registered in Primary, Secondary or ASN and have no concerns about your teaching.
- Have some or all of the academic study required for the additional registration category you are looking to teach in.
- Find a headteacher or school leader who will recommend you for provisional registration.
- Gain teaching experience in the new subject.
- Be recommended for full registration.
I will use myself as an example to illustrate how this works in practice.
I'm a registered teacher of Primary. I did an undergraduate degree before doing my post graduate teaching qualification. I need 80 credits of English degree level study to allow me to pursue additional registration in Secondary English. My undergraduate degree gave me 80 credits and I am eligible for provisional registration.
I then need to find a fully registered headteacher or school leader to recommend me for provisional registration in Secondary English and submit the relevant forms.
Once I am granted provisional registration in English, I need to find a supportive school to gain experience, as well as gather, demonstrate and practise the pedagogical expertise I need to teach my new subject. This will likely be the same place that supported me to get provisional registration, but it doesn’t have to be. A headteacher or school leader will act as my reviewer and they will use their professional judgement to assess if I have met the Standard for Full Registration.
Following a successful observation of my teaching, my reviewer will recommend me for full registration.
GTC Scotland reviews the information and recommendation, and I become fully registered in Secondary English.
If I only had 60 credits, I may be eligible for provisional (conditional) registration and must do additional study to top-up my qualification. I would follow the same steps as above but would need to complete this additional study before being recommended for full registration.
Further information
For more information about the process, including case studies from teachers who have added subjects or categories via the additional registration route visit our additional registration webpages.
