What does a great Head of Year look like?

[DNAshelicase]

Posted this in the staffroom but all is quiet atm so posted here for traffic, sorry.

Hi all,

I’ve recently been promoted to HOY8 starting September. I’m an experienced teacher of 7 years so I’m confident in the classroom but I really want to start off on the right foot as HOY.

I’m interested in teacher and parent input here, what do you want from a HOY? If you know a great HOY what is great about them?

Thanks for any feedback, I really appreciate it!

From a teacher's perspective:

Worst HOYs are far too matey with their students enabling poorly behaved children to manipulate situations in their favour.

Best HOY are neutral and amazing negotiators. Never take sides. Uncompromising on school rules yet at the same time understanding and empathetic.

It's a tough role.

A good HoY is willing to tell the unvarnished truth to parents about their children. Most HoYs I worked with over 40 years simply weren’t.

@Elodie2019 summed up perfectly!

Use your collegues' experience. You may find that parents find you too strict while teachers find you too soft, particularly when dealing with children who are having lots of problems. You will have the balanced view and have to walk that line.

Get ready for your email inbox to go crazy. Everybody will copy you into everything. I advise against checking email at home. People can be horrible sometimes and you don't need to be reading that at 10pm at night before bed. There's nothing you can do until the next morning at school anyway. Value your own time.

Keep your tutors in the loop and keep them feeling responsible. Even with the best will in the world, you will spend most of your time on the children with the most need. Tutors need to understand their role in terms of championing all those kids just getting on with it (or just appear to be!).

Difficult conversations are better in the phone or preferably in person. Email seems a nice shield at the time that many teachers hide behind, but you can be sure to recieve an essay back challenging every point after the recipient has stewed on it. Verbally, you can come across more personable and explain your reasoning especially regarding unpopular decisions.

Get the students on side. You will need to be seen as pretty ferocious when needed but make a point of showing your sense of warmth/humour to the same student(s) at the next opportunity. Not only will this show that you were disappointed with their behaviour, not them personally, it also sets a good example for not holding grudges.

If you don't have a school counsellor or similar, try getselfhelp.co.uk for some resources of how to help your students in the short term. I found them particularly useful for helping students with anxiety. This website was endorsed by Mental Health First Aid- which, by the way, is a great course and you should do it.

Keanu Reeves

Elodie - that's exactly what dd said about her year 10/11 HOY! She ignored the good, quiet, hard-working, shy, anxious etc ones and was all over the poorly behaved ones. The first group could see right through it and knew they would never be her priority, the 2nd group walked all over her, bad behaviour escalated and it was a pretty unhappy 2 years

Elodie - the bad points describe my HOY back when I was at school - she was fortunate only one student got stabbed during their time in her year group. (Not a great school - but could have been less terrifying if she'd listened to her "non favourites").

I was a HoY with a similar full timetable in a tough school. Be prepared not to eat or wee all day!one of the biggest things I learned was to get every angle of information when dealing with incidents. Always reply to an email as soon as you can, even if it is " thanks for letting me know, let me get back to you when I have spoken to so and so, checked cctv, got evidence, checked with the office etc etc. Keep tutors in your team up to date about as much as you can, they can often fend things off before they get to you. If you have an assistant, use their particular skills; decide early on what they could take responsibility for. Do you have to provide a pastoral/ form time programme? If so, there are various to subscribe to, to take the pressure off.

Make sure there is someone you can offload to , whether it is a rant, a cry or whatever. Being a HoY was the most draining, unpredictable thing I did and thank goodness I had 20yrs teaching under my belt so my lessons coped with the inevitable impact. My colleagues were amazing and supportive.

Good luck, you sound really motivated, you'll do well!

Consistent with appropriate punishments while maintaining a good relationship with the students.

Someone with a great deal of compassion - an important leadership quality imo.

Ensure you always say Hello and speak to Support staff in the office, reception, Exams, medical, lab technicians as well as teachers - helps keep them on your side.