If you could appoint a new head for your child's primary school, what would you look for?

[lingle]

Our head leaves us in two terms and the chair of governors has circulated a request for our views on what kind of head the governors should choose next.

I simply can't think of anything to say except that I'm sorry this head is leaving.

Honesty and integrity. Ours is super with the children and runs a good ship, but can be very disingenuous when the autocracy is threatened.

I wouldn't think in terms of person/ personality, but I would ponder what is important for the school. Ie is academic attainment the priority, or do you have any particular local challenges - increasing sporting provision? Community involvement - healthy schools/ eating, is ESL a particular issue? I think the integrity stuff goes without saying, tbh. But if your previous ht was not 'approachable', then this would be worth mentioning.

The govs might ask the kids, too. We saw some corkers of responses from the children about what sort of person they wanted.

Please say the school is my dd's school lingle as the head is completely up his own backside

what happened there ?

Euphemia, our outgoing ht did the splits on the stage at her leaving assembly. She was quite a big lady.

We all thought it was just as well she left it until we had already selected her successor, lest the ability to do the splits on demand become part of the job description.

I expect that the attributes that will flood in to school will be all those that the current head is lacking in.

How about one who sanctions term-time holidays?

madwomanintheattic after reading some of the crazy lunchbox police threads on here I think I'd go for a head with as little interest in healthy eating as possible!

You need someone who has the status for the job. If they cannot stand up in front of a school assembly and have the pupils all paying attention and preferably mesmerised by what they say, they are not the right person. That also applies to the ability of the head teacher to stand up and talk to a cohort of parents.
Most teachers would say that the head teacher has to be the best teacher in the school, so that they have credence. That is a nice to have but I think with changing times this is not actually necessary. In fact you can be a head teacher (and there are some) and not have a teaching qualification. I would say they do have to be a good teacher. What is far more important now is being a good leader and manager.
As governors you need to decide where you want the school to be in 5 years time and that will to some extent dictate what kind of head teacher you are looking for. The one thing that it should not be is a clone of the current head and for me it also needs to be someone from outside the current school staff, as appointing the current deputy is often a bad decision.

Yy, but those sorts of things will come up during the selection process - usually involving the candidate taking an all school assembly/ teaching a couple of classes with the selection committee.

One of our candidates was so softly spoken (and frankly, boring) that even we couldn't hear her. Some of the children in the small group she was taking actually gave up completely and laid on the floor.

I wondered afterwards if she was an LA plant. Lovely lovely person, but not an authoritative note in her body. Which I suppose would be a pleasant change if your previous ht was hitler, but...

Interesting about the deputy... Quite often these days no one applies, which means either you appoint the current deputy if he/ she did, or you suck it up and expect them to run with it in the interim. Tricksy! Certainly there are less applicants for outstanding primarys in our neck of the woods. No one wants the hassle of trying to fill 'outstanding' shoes for little in return except way more work.

lol clam definitely someone who allows termtime breaks and I agree there is a real risk that everyone will make submissions asking for someone who has the opposite of current head's flaws.

Our head's flaws are (i) she can't bring herself to care enough about competitive sport for the liking of the sporty parents and (ii) her subtle social skills levels (the smiley smiley stuff) would be considered ok in a man but some people find her rude.

So my fear is that we could get a gentle smiley person who wins immediate support by setting up time for netball practice but can't make hard decisions and can't fight for the children.

Funny what admission says about not needing to be a teacher. The best person I can think of to be head in this situation (school has gone from underperfoming to excellent and now we have loads of building work becaue of the expansion) is a client of mine who is a superb managing director and doesn't mind taking over other people's projects.

I think you need someone with great management skills who understands what children should be learning and how to construct an efficient and engaging curriculum. I don't think a head necessarily has to be a fabulous classroom teacher with endless patience for small children.

that's very helpful Bonsoir thank you. I think our head is leaving because she prefers meaty projects to long-term management IYSWIM. So we need someone who's prepared to get excited about timetables.

lingle Someone excited by timetables is the last person I'd go for in a head. Unless you are a tiny school that can be 99% delegated to any competent school administrator. People skills are what is necessary - with children, parents, governors, LA, friends of school etc. I like our head. She has presence with adults and warmth with kids. The deputy who is being lined up to take over regularly fails to greet people and struggles to smile. That will affect the feel of the school.

I would look for someone who is excited about continuous improvement, and about engaging the staff in the quest for and implementation of ever better teaching.

right!

yes, I suppose the art is to find a "continuer" rather than a "starter". Our current head is a starter. I think our current head would never have accepted a "filling big shoes" job.

Management is largely about execution rather than strategy anyway. I would ask searching questions of any interview candidate about developments in educational practice and how he/she keeps on top of them.

The HT at dd's school is pretty good. He's always available (every parent has his mobile number, he's in school from 7.30am to 6pm and will contact you evenings and weekends and during holidays if needed),he's happy to listen to any concerns, runs a really tight ship, is adored by the children and respected and mostly liked by the parents and has a good relationship with staff and governors alike.Hoping we keep him until he retires now.