i
The Headteacher’s Handbook The essential guide to leading a primary school
Rae Snape
9781472975423_TheHeadteachersHandbook_Finalpass_pi-300.indd i
10-Jun-21 19:35:16
ii
iii
BLOOMSBURY EDUCATION Bloomsbury Publishing Plc 50 Bedford Square, London, WC1B 3DP, UK 29 Earlsfort Terrace, Dublin 2, Ireland BLOOMSBURY, BLOOMSBURY EDUCATION and the Diana logo are trademarks of Bloomsbury Publishing Plc First published in Great Britain 2021 Text copyright © Rachel Snape, 2021 All contributions are copyright of the contributor named Material from Department for Education documents used in this publication are approved under an Open Government Licence: www.nationalarchives.gov.uk/doc/ open-government-licence/version/3/ Rachel Snape has asserted her right under the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act, 1988, to be identified as Author of this work Bloomsbury Publishing Plc does not have any control over, or responsibility for, any third-party websites referred to or in this book. All internet addresses given in this book were correct at the time of going to press. The author and publisher regret any inconvenience caused if addresses have changed or sites have ceased to exist, but can accept no responsibility for any such changes All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, or any information storage or retrieval system, without prior permission in writing from the publishers A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library ISBN: PB: 978-1-4729-7542-3; ePDF: 978-1-4729-7543-0; ePub: 978-1-4729-7540-9 2 4 6 8 10 9 7 5 3 1 (paperback) Typeset by Newgen KnowledgeWorks Pvt. Ltd., Chennai, India Printed and bound in the UK by CPI Group (UK) Ltd, Croydon, CR0 4YY To find out more about our authors and books visit www.bloomsbury.com and sign up for our newsletters
9781472975423_TheHeadteachersHandbook_Finalpass_pi-300.indd ii
10-Jun-21 19:35:17
iii
Contents Acknowledgements vi Foreword by Professor Dame Alison Peacock, DL vii Introduction xi
Part 1 Settling into your new headship
1
1
Congratulations, you’ve been appointed! Now what? 3 With contributions from Emma Hickling and Neil Jones
2
Your first day 13 With contributions from Emily Proffitt
3
Your first week and month 19 With contributions from Neil Jones
4
Your first term 25 With contributions from Malcolm Laverty
Part 2 Vision and culture
35
5
Setting the stall and communicating the vision 37 With contributions from Dr Neil Hawkes, Andrew Morrish and John Cosgrove
6
Leading by example and cultivating the culture 51 With contributions from Rachel Orr and Hayley Walton
Part 3 Building a staff team
63
7
Recruitment 65 With contributions from Ben Barton and Hannah Wilson
8
Retention 75 With contributions from Ben Barton, Hannah Wilson and Dr Emma Kell
9781472975423_TheHeadteachersHandbook_Finalpass_pi-300.indd iii
10-Jun-21 19:35:17
iv
v
9 Building trust and distributing leadership 89 With contributions from Mark Chatley and Dr Kulvarn Atwal 10 Supporting staff wellbeing 99 With contributions from Adrian Bethune, Dr Kulvarn Atwal and Helena Marsh 11 Staff disciplinary, grievances and redundancy 109 With contributions from Christalla Jamil, Remi Atoyebi and John Cosgrove
Part 4 Accountability
121
12 Working with the board 123 With contributions from Raj Unsworth and Rosemary Hoyle 13 Reporting, recording, school performance and compliance 135 With contributions from James Pembroke and Malcolm Laverty 14 Getting ‘the call’ 147 With contributions from Amy Wright
Part 5 Building a community
155
15 Strengthening community relationships 157 With contributions from Amy Wright 16 Inclusion, equality and diversity 165 With contributions from Bennie Kara and Jules Daulby
Part 6 Curriculum, assessment and pedagogy
173
Contents
17 Curriculum and assessment design 175 With contributions from Ben Erskine, Mary Myatt, Dr James Biddulph and Luke Rolls 18 Pedagogy, research and innovation 193 With contributions from Hywel Roberts, Dr Kulvarn Atwal and Pauline Stirling
iv
9781472975423_TheHeadteachersHandbook_Finalpass_pi-300.indd iv
10-Jun-21 19:35:17
v
Part 7 Handling the day-to-day
203
19 A strategic approach to financial management 205 With contributions from Hilary Goldsmith 20 Health and safety 213 With contributions from Kate Owbridge 21 From behaviour management to behaviour empowerment 219 With contributions from Paul Dix and John Cosgrove 22 Dealing with complaints 227 With contributions from Sarah Watkins 23 Managing the unexpected 235 With contributions from Dr John Mynott 24 Safeguarding and pupil wellbeing 241 With contributions from Corinne Latham and Alison Woosey 25 Special educational needs and disabilities 251 With contributions from Anita Devi
Part 8 Staying the course
259
26 Wellbeing and self-care 261 With contributions from James Hilton 27 The joy of the job 267 With contributions from Dr Clare Campbell 28 Maintaining the vision – your first year and beyond! 275 With contributions from Sir John Dunford
References 297 Index 301
Contents
Final thoughts 281 Featuring Sir David Carter’s first 100 days in headship
v
9781472975423_TheHeadteachersHandbook_Finalpass_pi-300.indd v
10-Jun-21 19:35:17
vi
vii
Acknowledgements First and foremost, my thanks and appreciation go to each and every one of the brilliant writers in this book. As headteachers, we learn with others and from others and in community, and I am humbled to have had the support and insights of so many expert and experienced voices from within the education eco-system to help create this book. I hope the thoughts, ideas, wisdom and inspiration that they have contributed so generously will enrich new, aspiring and experienced headteachers as much as they have me. There is so much sound advice and guidance that even someone like me, with 14 years of experience under my belt, will find things here that will help them in their day-to-day management and leadership. Thank you so much, colleagues. I am indebted to you! Secondly, I would like to thank my incredible editor Hannah, for her patience, perseverance and skill, and for believing in me in the first place! Thirdly, I would like to thank all the children, colleagues, headteachers, teachers, staff, governors, parents and professional partners in my previous and current schools. You have been my companions on this journey. My final thanks go to my lovely mum and amazing teacher Deirdre, her partner Derek, my two fabulous sisters Sarah and Naomi, also teachers, and their families, my gorgeous husband Guy, and my two wonderful children Charlie and Esme. I am me because of all of you. Thank you.
9781472975423_TheHeadteachersHandbook_Finalpass_pi-300.indd vi
10-Jun-21 19:35:17
vii
Foreword Welcome to this wonderful book that has been written to inspire and support those who aspire to primary headship. A quick scan through these pages shows you the wealth of collegiate contributions that have been made by headteachers both current and past who have generously shared their insights into school leadership. Leading a primary school is a privilege. It is also an incredibly difficult role. As you will see from the advice and stories of leadership that follow, it is an irresistible opportunity to make a difference. When I was a headteacher, I allowed a team of researchers into my school who were keen to document the process of school improvement as it unfolded. This was a risk. Looking back, I had no idea about how my leadership of our team was going to enable us to move the school from an Ofsted category of ‘inadequate’ towards becoming the ‘centre of excellence’ that I promised the governing body at my interview. What I was clear about, however, was that the school needed to move towards becoming a place where every voice was listened to, understood and valued. The role of the teacher and headteacher is a seemingly never-ending one. There are always more children to talk with, more families to understand, more goals across the full breadth of the curriculum to achieve. Within this impossibility, lie the satisfaction and the joy of school leadership. Over the ensuing years, the school moved beyond its first judgement of ‘outstanding’ within three years and indeed as coach-loads of colleagues arrived at our gates from countries around the world, it is true to say that the vision of becoming a centre of excellence had become a reality. For me, this was never about sitting still. As the school began to improve, my vision moved beyond the individual setting towards how I might use this experience to work across our profession to liberate thousands of schools. As you read this book, and hopefully return to it again and again over time, I wonder if you might consider the following dispositions for humane leadership that were uncovered by the research team as they studied our school. Each of these dispositions increases the learning capacity of teachers and support colleagues as they engage in the career-long process of building and refining their professional knowledge.
9781472975423_TheHeadteachersHandbook_Finalpass_pi-300.indd vii
10-Jun-21 19:35:17
viii
ix
Dispositions that increase capacity for professional learning Empathy Our own knowledge and perception may be limiting if not informed by empathy. This entails looking through the child’s eyes to comprehend their thinking and understanding in order to help them. Empathy transforms relationships between teachers and children, enabling children to feel that they are being listened to and taken seriously. Empathy operates both in teachers’ relationship to children and for each other amongst a staff group. It also involves mutual supportiveness amongst the staff group for one another, since all of the other dispositions are strengthened if members of a staff group are reinforcing each other. Mutual supportiveness creates the conditions where nobody is embarrassed to ask questions, or to admit that they do not have all the answers. Colleagues who are able to admit to problems or ask for help are able to draw on the collective wisdom of the team (that includes you!).
Generosity Generosity reflects a generous view of everybody’s future in the making and trust in everybody’s capacity to learn. It includes open acceptance of everybody; everybody has a rightful place within the collective, so we accept collective responsibility for finding ways forward when problems arise, rather than complaining or blaming when individuals encounter stumbling blocks or barriers to their learning. It is the human face of persistence – never giving up on people and taking responsibility to keep searching for ways of creating better conditions for learning. It means a willingness to suspend judgement, to give the other the benefit of the doubt, to be ready to expand the boundaries of the collective to make it possible for everybody to be included.
Foreword
Emotional stability To exploit their power to make transforming choices to the full, teachers need to be able to trust their own judgement, rather than doing things because it is expected of them or trying to please a headteacher, multi-academy trust CEO or Ofsted. Emotional stability creates the conditions where teachers do something because it makes sense to them, rather than having to comply with what the group is doing. It generates the strength to resist popular notions of ability and
viii
9781472975423_TheHeadteachersHandbook_Finalpass_pi-300.indd viii
10-Jun-21 19:35:17
ix
norms of practice, and nurtures the ability to take risks, to resist practices that create limits and restrict freedom to learn. Emotional stability means the readiness to both challenge and be challenged, to resist new orthodoxies, to stay close to the vision and not be knocked off course.
Inventiveness Inventiveness entails the freedom and capacity to imagine and do something new. If teachers spot limits, it requires inventiveness to think of a way of overcoming them, even when drawing on their prior experience and existing repertoire. If they cannot come up with a solution from their repertoire, they need inventiveness to come up with a new idea that offers a way forward. Inclusive teaching requires inventiveness to create new ways of thinking about children and new practices to enable everybody’s learning to flourish.
Openness If teachers’ perceptions of what children are capable of assumes open-endedness, then there are no presumed limits. A willingness to embrace openness about both curriculum experience and opportunities for learning that may free children to learn means that teachers are able to avoid unwittingly creating limits through a rigid interpretation of curriculum and of opportunity to learn. Openness reflects the belief that the future is in the making in the present. Everything teachers do every day either increases or restricts opportunities for learning.
Persistence Persistence is needed to avoid giving up on people or practices. It means holding onto the view that there is always more that can be done to free children to learn, and the belief that, however challenging a situation, change is always possible. It is needed for teachers to enact their own power to transform learning capacity, even in the face of challenges; it enables them to keep trying. Persistence includes personal qualities of courage and humility, knowing that we do not have all the answers and that transforming learning capacity will be a struggle that we commit to.
This is needed to explore the interaction between classroom conditions and children’s states of mind that affect their capacity to learn. It entails the
Foreword
Questioning and humility
ix
9781472975423_TheHeadteachersHandbook_Finalpass_pi-300.indd ix
10-Jun-21 19:35:17
xi
x
commitment to question the status quo, and to wonder, ‘Could I do this differently? Is there a better way for this child? Is there a better way for all children?’ If, as a school leader, you can build and develop your team of colleagues so that you and they embrace these professional learning dispositions, you will create a culture of continuous development. As Chief Executive of the Chartered College of Teaching, I can see how every school leader who exhibits these qualities builds the capacity for transformative professional learning across their team. This book is your first step in creating the kind of school you are proud to lead and where your colleagues will be happy and fulfilled under your guidance. I wish you every success.
Foreword
Professor Dame Alison Peacock, DL Chief Executive of the Chartered College of Teaching
x
9781472975423_TheHeadteachersHandbook_Finalpass_pi-300.indd x
10-Jun-21 19:35:17
xi
Introduction When I became a headteacher 14 years ago, I would jokingly say that I had looked in the desk drawers in my new office and was concerned that the previous headteacher had taken the manual. Becoming a headteacher is a challenging phenomenon because, although you are the ‘boss of the school’ and in many eyes you are expected to know everything, you really don’t have all the answers at all and you have no experience of headship to draw upon. You don’t know whom to ask for help. You don’t necessarily know what to prioritise. You don’t always know how to manage conflict at the same time as building your team. You are nervous of asking others because you would like to appear knowledgeable and competent. This is where The Headteacher’s Handbook comes in. The Headteacher’s Handbook is the Haynes Manual for primary heads. The book I wish I had had. And the book that I hope helps you as you start your headship journey. Being a headteacher is a wonderful and inspiring job. It is a joy and a privilege. It is a job that I love and that has served me very well and no two days are alike. The fact that no two days are alike is one of the delights and also one of the challenges of the #bestjobintheworld. As I learned early on, on the best days headship is the best job in the world and on the worst days it is one of the most important. I began my headship adventure on 5th January 2007 at The Spinney Primary School in Cambridge, a bijou one-form-entry village school on the outskirts of the city. With a warm community ethos, and a supportive and talented staff and governor team, this was the perfect place to learn my craft. When I was appointed, I had not felt ready to take on headship, as it was a secondment supported by the local authority, but after about six months in the job, I was smitten. I wanted to work with the community to help shape a wonderful and engaging vision for the school and so I stayed for the next decade and beyond. Working with a highly creative, forward-thinking and outward-reaching team, and in partnership with local, national and international partners, we designed a holistic curriculum to develop the whole child. After 12 joyful years, an opportunity came up to apply for a bigger school that would be closer to home and would mean I no longer had a daily commute across the city. I applied for the post of headteacher at Milton Road Primary School and started there in January 2020.
9781472975423_TheHeadteachersHandbook_Finalpass_pi-300.indd xi
10-Jun-21 19:35:17
xiii
Introduction
xii
Milton Road School was built in 2005 to a very high specification and around a very particular pedagogic design. With beautiful grounds, a large central courtyard, wide corridors designed as learning spaces, a forest area and an orchard, this is an inspiring environment to continue to develop a bespoke pedagogic and curriculum design. One of the many things that inspired me to apply were the words ‘Learning Adventure’ that appeared on the website. I loved the idea of creating a curriculum where learning is an adventure, using a motif of a compass to help set the direction of travel. With 14 years of headship experience, I know that, while the headteacher may be the one who helps set the vision and direction for the school, they cannot achieve their aims without the support and buy-in of their colleagues, children and community. Success is a team activity. Some of the leadership skills I have developed are being able to communicate a vision, determination and resilience, openness, optimism and self-awareness, friendliness, humility, authenticity, reflection and an indefatigable willingness to keep on learning! I cannot pretend to have got everything right in my career so far; I have made mistakes but I am keen to keep learning from as many people as possible. The Headteacher’s Handbook is designed as an essential guide to give new colleagues a starting point so that they can approach key areas with confidence by hearing from some of the voices in the education system. Every one of the contributors to the handbook has been handpicked for the particular area they are writing about. I thought carefully about whom to approach and I am so grateful to each and every one of them for sharing their knowledge and expertise with me, so that it can be shared with you. I am thrilled to have been able to call on so many amazing educators who have shared brilliant pearls of wisdom. Paul Dix will be talking about behaviour management, Helena Marsh shares her expertise on managing workload, Mary Myatt is included in the chapter on curriculum, and Dr Neil Hawkes shares with us his wisdom on values-based education. I hope you enjoy this treasure trove that has been curated especially for all new headteachers, and I hope it is a source of joy and encouragement to you as you start your career. The chapters have been specifically ordered to take you through from your first days, into your first weeks and months of headship, and then on to staying the course. Chapters have been set out around key practical themes that you will encounter at some point. You may decide to read The Headteacher’s Handbook from cover to cover, or you may decide to dip in and out depending on what problem, kerfuffle or conundrum you are facing at the time. However you approach this book, please know that I wrote it especially for you. I would like The Headteacher’s Handbook to be a source of comfort, succour and guidance as you start your career. Being a headteacher is an amazing job and
xii
9781472975423_TheHeadteachersHandbook_Finalpass_pi-300.indd xii
10-Jun-21 19:35:17
xiii
I truly want you to love it as much as I have. But it is not easy. So, in those trickier moments, when you don’t know which way to turn, I would love to imagine that one day a headteacher somewhere will pull a copy of this guide down off the shelf in their office, ruffle through the pages to find the chapter that is right for them and discover a few words of wisdom to guide them and sustain them to enjoy the course and stay the ride. Learning is an adventure and headship is an incredible journey. Good luck, bon voyage, let me know how you get on and send me a postcard!
Introduction xiii
9781472975423_TheHeadteachersHandbook_Finalpass_pi-300.indd xiii
10-Jun-21 19:35:17
xiv
1
9781472975423_TheHeadteachersHandbook_Finalpass_pi-300.indd xiv
10-Jun-21 19:35:17
1
PART 1
Settling into your new headship
9781472975423_TheHeadteachersHandbook_Finalpass_pi-300.indd 1
10-Jun-21 19:35:17
2
3
9781472975423_TheHeadteachersHandbook_Finalpass_pi-300.indd 2
10-Jun-21 19:35:17
3
1 Congratulations, you’ve been appointed! Now what? In this chapter we will: ●
look at how to prepare for your new headship
●
consider what makes a successful handover and introduce the induction checklist by Emma Hickling
●
hear from Neil Jones on managing this transition period with service, humility and credibility.
The headteacher interview process, as you will by now have found out, is a two-day arduous assault course of endurance. You may have been given every test under the sun, with the governors of your prospective school observing carefully as you met with school council, interrogated data, reviewed a budget control report hunting down unaccounted pennies, had tea and cake with the staff, and given your ‘vision for the school’ presentation to all the community and their spouses. You have been under a microscope for two long days and you’re left feeling exhausted. At six o’clock the phone rings. You shake your head as you go to pick up the phone. The job has gone to someone else; you are sure of it. The chair of governors is on the phone. ‘Thanks for coming to interview – we’d like to offer you the position!’ The moment is one of exhilaration, and the prospect of starting your first headship is exciting and overwhelming! And then what? With a term to go before you start in your new role, you have a chance to think ahead and prepare.
Preparation is key As a headteacher you will be leading a centre of learning, but when you start on your first day as the new headteacher and the new leader of your new school and your new community, you will be, in principle, the one everyone will turn to
9781472975423_TheHeadteachersHandbook_Finalpass_pi-300.indd 3
10-Jun-21 19:35:17
4
5
for vision and direction. As such, if you don’t prepare, you will find yourself in the most remarkable and paradoxical position, in that you won’t actually know very much about what the job entails and what you have to do. This was my experience on the first day of the new term in January 2007. When I was first appointed as the headteacher of a charming one-form-entry primary school on the outskirts of the city of Cambridge, it was in an interim capacity. The school governors had been unsuccessful in the first round of appointments and the local authority stepped in to identify a willing deputy in the county who could do the job. I had been a deputy for five years, working with a brilliant headteacher, Penny Todman, from whom I had learned a great deal. I had had my two children since being appointed as the deputy and I was very fond of the school. However, both the local authority and the headteacher I was working with saw potential in me and I was encouraged to take the next step. I started my first headship on the first day of the new term of January 2007. My son was five and my daughter had just turned three on Christmas Eve 2006. I started on a cold, snowy day in January and as I arrived at the school, I noticed a line of cars outside the school grounds. These were the cars of all the teachers and teaching assistants who were waiting outside as they were not able to get into the school car park. As I got out of the car to evaluate the situation, with my feet suddenly plunging into the soaking, thawing, slushy snow, I encountered a huddle of freezing colleagues who looked at me expectantly. Surely the new headteacher would be able to let them into the warmth of the school? The code for the school gate had obviously been changed over the holidays but I did not have the answer, neither the code for the gate nor the keys to the school!
The Headteacher’s Handbook
Lesson 1 When you become a headteacher, make sure the handover includes getting the keys, knowing how to get in and get out, and knowing how to set the alarm.
Handover So, let’s talk more about handover. Perhaps because I thought that becoming a headteacher was only going to be a temporary measure and not the subsequent 14 years of headship it actually became, I did not even think to make time with the
4
9781472975423_TheHeadteachersHandbook_Finalpass_pi-300.indd 4
10-Jun-21 19:35:17
5
outgoing headteacher to acquire all of the information I might need. So, looking back, I can see now that an induction checklist would have been useful.
Lesson 2 Use an induction checklist (that also includes Lesson 1)!
Congratulations, you’ve been appointed! Now what?
Set a time to meet with the outgoing headteacher well in advance of them leaving the school and you joining, and involve your new senior leadership team (SLT) too if you feel it is appropriate. Ask them to run you through everything you might possibly need to know about the school. They will have a huge wealth of knowledge and it’s in your interests to gather as much information as you possibly can, from the very obvious – the latest Ofsted report, staff lists and policy documents – to the easily forgotten – how the fire alarms work and who the trained first aiders are. Don’t forget to make as many notes as possible throughout the meeting. Your multi-academy trust (MAT) or local authority might have an induction checklist to help you in this meeting, but if not, on the following page is an example checklist created by Emma Hickling to get you started. Emma is the Executive Headteacher of The ASPIRE Federation (a partnership of four rural primary schools in Kent). Emma wrote the checklist when developing a headteacher induction programme in Kent and it is given as part of a handbook to all new headteachers in her schools. This isn’t a fully comprehensive checklist, as the information you need will depend on your context, but it should be enough to give you a sense of the level of detail you should try to acquire in this meeting. You can photocopy the checklist if you wish but make sure you add any additional points that need to be covered in your context. Once you’ve completed your checklist, keep it close at hand as you prepare to take on your new role. Make sure you look over each document in detail. If possible, do this before the outgoing headteacher leaves their post so you can go back to them with questions about anything you don’t understand or you realise is missing. Having a secure grasp of this information in advance of starting at your school will serve you well in your first few weeks and months in post.
5
9781472975423_TheHeadteachersHandbook_Finalpass_pi-300.indd 5
10-Jun-21 19:35:17
6
7
New headteacher’s induction checklist Category
Item
Facilities
How to unlock the gates and do the door codes
Done?
Site manager’s name and contact details Fire and intruder alarms and testing systems Catering provider – contact details and copy of current menu Personnel
List of all staff, job titles and responsibilities, both external and internal List and contact details of governors Staffing structure, including pay grades and responsibilities HR files for all personnel, including employment contracts, qualifications, appraisal documents, etc. Any outstanding disciplinary concerns or grievances List of trained first aiders Name and contact details of external advisers, LA contact and diocesan officer
Safeguarding
Name of designated personnel for child protection Upcoming Child in Need meetings
The Headteacher’s Handbook
Finance
Budget plan and details of latest financial audit Any planned capital projects
Governors
Names and contact details of all governors and clerks Minutes of most recent meeting and actions agreed Agreed proforma for headteacher’s report to governors
6
9781472975423_TheHeadteachersHandbook_Finalpass_pi-300.indd 6
10-Jun-21 19:35:17
7
Policies and documents
Mission statement
School improvement plan School self-evaluation summary Latest Ofsted report School prospectus Minutes of all relevant meetings, including staff and SLT meetings from the last term Parent–teacher association (PTA) contact details and meeting minutes All active policies: behaviour, safeguarding, SEN, data protection, health and safety, diversity and inclusion, etc. How to update the website – logins, passwords and contact details for IT support School data
Access to Analyse School Performance data (or alternative) Results information for all phases Internal data and access to tracking system used
Pupils
Pupil records
Recent parental complaints or concerns Teaching and learning
Curriculum map – long-term plan
Assessment timelines Provision for pupil premium Details of SEN support Sports premium – planned use and previous use A discussion regarding strengths and areas of development of teaching and the curriculum
Congratulations, you’ve been appointed! Now what?
List of pupils with an EHCP or additional needs
7
9781472975423_TheHeadteachersHandbook_Finalpass_pi-300.indd 7
10-Jun-21 19:35:17
