Learners of French restricted by checks (8)
I believe the answer is:
students
'learners' is the definition.
(student is a kind of learner)
'of french restricted by checks' is the wordplay.
'of french' becomes 'de' ('of' in French).
'restricted by' becomes 'stunts' (I am not sure about this - if you are sure you should give a lot more credence to this answer).
'checks' is an insertion indicator (inserted letters are checked or controlled).
'de' inserted into 'stunts' is 'STUDENTS'.
Can you help me to learn more?
(Other definitions for students that I've seen before include "Teachers teach them" , "Pupils, learners" , "Pupils or scholars" , "Tests dun? (anag)" , "Eg, undergraduates" .)