You need the basic disclosure from Disclosure Scotland. This is regardless if you're Scottish or in Scotland or not. 25 quid. 5 working days to get.

Once this arrives at your address, send it back to them (this can't be done all in one go) and they will get a registered person to give it a signature and a stamp. This they do for free. (5 working days, requires SAE)

What follows after this is extremely expensive and time consuming:

Then, send this to the Foreign Office in London, they will attach an apostille (10 working days as a standard service, less if you pay more for something quicker). Once you get this back, send it to the Chinese Consulate and they will authenticate the apostille. (5 to 7 working days)

Degrees are the same but usually the signature on the degree is enough to begin the process immediately.

TEFL certs don't have signatures of people registered to the public record, as well as many of the certs being gained overseas, so the foreign office will not grant apostille to those certificates, you can not get the consulates authentication without the apostille, so therefore it can't be authenticated as straight forward as other certificates. However, not necassary for a Chinese visa.

@tiger

You're doing it wrong.

I also just pay 3 months at a time.

I'll fess up. I just gave you -1 for living in Manchester.

@Peter99
@Napoleon

The Americans don't like it up 'em.