School Headship: Present and Future

1
School Headship Present and Future
Alan Smithers and Pamela Robinson

• Centre for Education and Employment Research

University of Buckingham
The Future of School Leadership
NUT Conference, London, 1 May 2007
2
Spotlight

• NCSL and GTC claim there is a crisis in
  headteacher recruitment.
• PwC has argued that the nature of schools has
  changed to the point that they need to be led in
  different ways.
• The government is keen to reform, modernise and
  innovate.

3
Research

• 1 in 1,000 primary schools in England and Wales
  19 out of 19,059
• 1 in 100 secondary schools 36 out of 3,591
• 1 in 33 HMC and GSA schools 12 out of 403

4
Teachers in England
Regular
Schools
Phase
Ratio
Qualified

• Primary
• Secondary

174,600 202,200
17,504 3,367
101 601
5
Future Heads Among Staff?
Yes But
Phase
Yes
No
Not Attracted

• Primary
• Secondary

100.0 100.0
0.0 0.0
76.5 12.9
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Barriers to Recruitment

Primary
Secondary

• Salary
• Workload
• Accountability

63.2 52.6 31.6
Workload Stress/pressure Vulnerability to
sack Difficulty Exaggerated
44.4 30.6 27.8 11.1
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Reasons for Not Wanting to be a Head
Primary
The pay differentials are the key. I am not
that far ahead of any of my SMT. Not enough
extra rewards for the extra responsibilities.
Secondary

• If you are not meeting your targets you are
  very, very vulnerable arent you.
• Workload and pressure, but that is related to
  vulnerability. That is the biggest reason to
  stay in the second tier.

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Current Role and Responsibilities

• Strategy
• Assemblies
• Leadership Team
• Pupils
• Teachers
• Parents
• Teaching
• Support Staff
• Pastoral
• Governors

Admin LEA Events Admissions Interviews ITT Communi
ty Partnerships Networking SIP
Appraisal SEF School Profile Finance Bids and
Awards Premises Personnel CRB Checks Health
Safety Unexpected
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Changes

• Headship initiativitis SIPs.
• School Organisation specialist schools trusts.
• Staffing workforce remodelling TLRs.
• Curriculum and Assessment data management and
  pupil tracking vocational diplomas.
• Accountability SEF school profile.
• Funding devolved budgets bidding culture.
• Premises BSF health and safety.
• Social Agenda ECM healthy eating.

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Too Big for One Person?
Yes
Phase
No

• Primary
• Secondary

57.9 27.8
42.1 69.4
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Role LEA Reduced?
Yes
Phase
No
New

• Primary
• Secondary

61.1 65.5
38.8 24.1
0.0 10.3
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LEA Quotes
Primary
Sadly we cannot get the old levels of support
and advice from the county in its new
set-up. We need access to more expertise than
there is in the school and we relied on the LEA
for support.
Secondary

• I deal with them as little as possible and find
  them an irritation putting up barriers to prevent
  me doing my job.
• I think the LEA role is diminishing and I
  welcome it.

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Support from Other Heads
Yes
Phase
Little
None

• Primary
• Secondary

100.0 75.0
0.0 14.3
0.0 10.7
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Head Quotes
Primary
There is a great informal network that I could
not manage without. There is a lot of picking
up the phone and seeking a colleagues advice.
Secondary

• It is dog eat dog! We cannot work
  collaboratively because of parental choice
  competition.
• The competition around here is very, very severe
  and that has made the 14-19 agenda so hard.

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Alternative Models

• Business Model CEO with Heads of Teaching and
  Learning, Finance, Personnel and Facilities.
• Hard Federation partnerships formalised into
  single institution with different campuses.
• Cluster of mutually supporting schools sharing
  some functions but retaining identity and
  automony.
• Co-Headship to halve the stress and double the
  capacity.
• PFI where premises manager in charge of use of
  school building.

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School Headship?

• Too few potential recruits so need to increase
  pool.
• Change in the nature of schooling.
• Government wants to.

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Schooling Changed?

• Superficially, yes, through ECM, extended
  schools, childrens centres etc.
• But, fundamentally, no. Raison dêtre is - as
  it has always been - educating young people to
  get the most out of their lives.
• This must determine who runs the school.
• The extra functions that have been loaded on to
  schools should be handled by support staff
  responsible to the person leading the teaching
  and learning.

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Independent Sector

• Actual businesses.
• Bursar crucial, but head in charge.
• Power of the head derives from income being
  dependent on the perception of quality of
  teaching.
• Few successful examples of heads being appointed
  from outside teaching.
• Not difficult to fill headteacher posts.
• Mischievously suggested that many of problems
  state sector come from the govt as self-appointed
  managers having no classroom experience.

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Governments Approach

• Blair government has adopted a distinctive
  approach to education assuming responsibility for
  delivery.
• Targets and pressure from centre.
• Test and exam results treated as product like
  barrels of oil or tin of baked beans.
• Schools thought of as just like other businesses.
• This in turn opens the way to the belief that the
  leadership and management skills can be brought
  in from outside.

20
Heads from Outside?

• My husband is in telecommunications and is a
  brilliant manager, but we couldnt swap jobs,
  neither of us would have a clue.
• It is not like running a factory is it here are
  your targets for the year, get on with it!
• My worry would be that you would end up with
  someone who looks at financial not teaching
  issues.
• It was a disaster. There was a sense among
  teachers that she didnt really understand
  education.

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Flawed

• Test and exam scores are not the product of
  education they are only a surrogate.
• The governments approach values what can be
  measured above what cannot.
• When a measure becomes a target it ceases to be
  a good measure.
• Government has unwisely attached its reputation
  to targets.
• In its desperate desire to meet them it has
  thrown initiatives at them.

22
Blairs Legacy

• For all the good intentions, the raised scores
  and extra money, it has to be said that Blairs
  government has done quite a lot of harm to
  education.
• The narrow focus on scores is linked to the
  alienation and truancy of many children,
  unhappiness, and a failure to develop
  self-discipline and other soft-skills.
• Treating heads as football managers to be sacked
  when the results are not good has been a major
  factor in any current recruitment difficulties.

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Conclusion

• Any current recruitment difficulties are not a
  reason to rethink headship.
• The crisis, if there be one, is government made
  and it should look to itself.
• The next government needs to move beyond England
  Education plc to a new relationship with schools.
• The things that need doing are matters of
  undoing.

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Primary Head

• There has got to be some intelligent and
  reasoned evaluation of what is happening in
  schools at the moment. It is all about meeting a
  narrow band of targets, everything is target-led
  and that is dangerous for the primary curriculum.
  Headship is being measured by public results.
  Someone has to take a good look at what is
  happening. It is being done on the hoof and if
  it will make the news.

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Secondary Head

• They came in saying theyre not going to
  over-regulate and were going to be hands-off and
  according to needs, and then they over-regulate
  and do the exact opposite. The problems with the
  job are centrally and local authority imposed.
  So youve got to free schools up. If you free
  heads up I think more people will want to be one,
  creativity in leadership is of the essence and
  were not allowed to be creative.

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Reference

• The report School Headship Present and Future,
  by Alan Smithers and Pamela Robinson is available
  at
• http//www.teachers.org.uk/story.php?id3897
• http//www.buckingham.ac.uk/education/research/cee
  r/publications.htmla