Hundreds of schools across England and Wales are bracing themselves for disruption, as they open for the new term before checks on their staff are completed.

Some pupils are being turned away because Wednesday's deadline for the checks to be finished has not been met.

Thousands of pupils at schools which went back earlier have already missed lessons or been sent home because of the backlog.

The delays in completing police checks at the Criminal Records Bureau are also affecting hospital workers, care homes and social services departments.

Errors

Staff at the Criminal Records Bureau worked through Tuesday night, trying to meet their deadline of processing all valid teacher applications by the start of term.

We're talking about a whole range of people who are associated with children and young people

Eamonn O'Kane

The latest information is that a backlog of around 7,000 applications remains.

However, the bureau says that a large number of those cannot be processed because they contain errors.

It was aiming to send secure emails to schools on Wednesday morning, confirming which staff have been cleared so that they can start teaching classes.

Guidelines

Head teachers at affected schools face the difficult choice of sending pupils home, or deciding to let teachers who have not been cleared start lessons.

Government guidelines say they should not be allowed to teach classes, even if they are supervised by other staff.

The Department of Education said it did not know how many more schools would be affected as they prepared to start the new term.

Eamonn O'Kane, general secretary of the NASUWT teaching union told BBC Radio Five Live: "We're not just simply talking about teachers of course, we're talking about a whole range of people who are associated with children and young people.

"That encompasses everyone from bus drivers bringing children to school to lollipop men and women."

'Significant changes'

Mr O'Kane said the scale of the task of vetting all school staff in time for the new term had been underestimated.

The vetting delays have affected our ability to recruit everyone from residential care workers to adoptive parents

David Wright

He said large numbers of pupils were being affected, including many already facing a difficult period as they moved from one school to another.

"It simply underlines the fact that if you are going to bring in these sweeping and significant changes you really do have to anticipate the administrative task that is required," he said.

Mr O'Kane said many teachers were "fed up" because the government had failed to react to a problem that had been pointed out to it.

He also said that children playing unsupervised because they could not attend school were at greater risk than those in the care of unchecked staff.

'Strain'

The Association of Directors of Social Services (ADSS) said the backlog in police checks was affecting local authorities.

David Wright, director of social services at Norfolk County Council, said staff had been put under "enormous strain".

"The vetting delays have affected our ability to recruit everyone from residential care workers to adoptive parents," he told the Daily Telegraph.

"This has caused huge difficulties. The whole social services system has slowed down dramatically."