Shared Headships Primary- Any experience?

[knithappens]

It's been hinted at that our primary school is to have a shared headship with another school in the area (yet to be determined). We are a school of 60 ish pupils plus a nursery of 15, fairly isolated Scottish location. We wonder how this works and has anyone else had experience of a shared headship? Our current head lives in the community and involves the school in everything so we don't want to lose that when he retires.

This is going to start happening more and more, I think - a few schools around me are becoming federated. I know a Deputy who worked over two small schools - he did find it hard, but manageable, and the schools certainly thrived. You have to look at it from the POV that it makes financial sense, and savings the school can make in staff salaries can be spent elsewhere on the pupils. 60+15 is a very small school, and given that a large part of the budget is on a per-pupil basis, the Head's salary must be very significant.

DD's primary school started this last year and I don't like it. Lovely head left so I may be biased as noone would ever be as good as she was.

They advertised twice and couldn't find anyone so have given up. Head from another primary comes in two days a week. I think the lack of someone with a real passion about the school has made a difference though I accept it could be this indivdual. Maybe someone else could make it work better?

Plus it means the 3 days a week when the head isn't there, the deputy has to do loads of head type stuff. Unfortunately she's dd's teacher and it means she's hardly teaching now. The TA (who does have QT status) is left teaching a lot of the time in those 3 days.

Yes, I worry about the lack of passion as our current head is wonderful. 60 +15 is not so tiny a school in a very rural area like ours.
The schools I have read about in the press have been perhaps 20 pupils in one and 30 pupils in the other so we are hopeful to avoid having a shared head.
The savings seem to be £24,000 to £30,000 as reported in the press but this is not then spent on the pupils but saved from the education budget to provide services elsewhere.
It is always going to cost more per head in rural schools and I agree when numbers get ridiculously low it becomes financially unviable to continue.
In our area, it seems a shared headship is imposed on a school from the off,not as a result of lack of applications for an individual post.
Our Head teacher also teaches for 2 days so if that time was replaced with another teaching memeber of staff would there really be a saving in the long term?

Happening to us right now...

Similar size and remote location, schools-wise, to the OP, and so far it is rubbish!

The new stand-in head has been in post since 1 Jan and has yet to make herself known to hardly anyone (certainly not us); we no longer receive weekly newsletters so rarely know what is going on, and I gather she is hardly there spending much time at her other school (c.10 miles away)

It must be tricky running two schools / lots of staff / governors / parents / etc - but we do think she could be making a bit more of an effort than she has so far.

Doesn't help that, in theory, she is only in post until July, with a permanent head in place from September - so maybe she isn't bothering because she doesn't feel she has to?

This is what we're dreading. Lack of commitment. We don't want a Head that just fills in the paperwork and manages the staff.
They need to be so much more, driving the school and having a real passion.

Since I last commented, one of our parent council memebers has spoken to the chairperson of the school parent council of another school nearby who have had a shared head for a while. It seems to be working reasonably well for them. They have gained a teacher and have the Head there for half the week.

I do wonder what the cost saving is if there has to be an extra teacher put in place?

Our current Head retires end of June and we already feel it's getting late for finding a permanent replacement as the council have yet to decide what form the new headship will take.

Yes, I suppose it's the fear of the unknown. Our HT always makes sure we have a huge amount of teaching time, we don't know how he manages.
Whatever situation we end up with we can be guaranteed our parents will support the school and the new HT in whatever form it takes. It's that kind of place.

The only thing that would stop that would be if a new HT didn't want parental involvement to the same extent. In that case it would be a catastrophic failing on the part of the council and School Parent Council in choosing the wrong person for the job.

Anyway, we are having a meeting straight after half term next week to discuss strategies. There is still a slight hope we will have our own dedicated HT whose number one priority is our school.