school might end up without a head teacher - what happens?

[geekgirl]

I'm on the headteacher recruitment panel at my dc's school - am starting to feel bloody nervous about the whole thing.
Our very lovely current head is moving on to a bigger school in January, and we advertised the job in the TimesEd recently. There was v. little interest, the deadline is very soon and none of the application packs have been returned. It's a good job for someone looking for their first headship - good salary scale for a small school, lowish teaching commitment etc., but apparently headship vacancies are extremely difficult to fill.
We'll start the whole round of advertising etc. again after the summer if we're not successful this time, but I'm beginning to realise that there is a distinct possiblity of the school ending up without a head for some time. Does anyone know what happens in that case? Does the LEA appoint an interim head? There's no member of staff who could do it.
I'm dreading it and worry that it will be very detrimental to the children - it's a bit of a 'unique' situation here and there needs to be someone who's a strong leader, otherwise it can all go to pot very quickly.

This happened to our infant school 5 years ago.
We were allocated an 'interim' head. The interim head also struggled to recruit a permanent head so she ended up staying.
It worked out all right in the end.

May be better without permanent head for a period than choosing the wrong one!!!!!

oh I don't know. I think it'll do the school a lot of harm. It's a really good school now, and that's pretty much thanks to the current head.
I keep thinking it'll go tits up in no time without a decent head.
Where does the LEA get the interim head from?

Don't want to worry you, be we were without a head for a year and the school went seriously downhill in that time.
(TBH the school wasn't that great in the 1st place)
Are you a small village school?
We were part of a rural cluster and so had to share a head with another village school.. we got 2 days a week and I think he just worked on damage limitation. It was extremely unsettled and now at the end of the year with the new head, she is still trying to calm things down and stamp her authority.

If you currently have a good leader, she will have things in place so that everyone knows their responsibilities, and will continue along the 'set path' for a limited time, before things begin to deteriorate.

IMHO I think a term without a head would be preferable to rushing into the wrong appointment.

Good luck!

yes, small village school, hadn't considered that we might share with another cluster school.
My main worry is that the school population is made up of just under half village children and over half American military children from a very mobile population and often a very unsettled background with struggling families (how's that for being PC?). The school was in deep shit for atrocious discipline and attainment before out current head and new staff came along 6 years ago and sorted it all out. It's just starting to pick up in popularity for locals again.
There needs to be someone who will have a very firm hold of the reins. The idea of not having anyone at the helm is grim.

we don't have a deputy head! Only 85 children on roll.

In our school the deputy head took over temporarily. The the LEA appointed a temporary head to fix the problems the school had and he was appointed permanently just a few weeks ago.

we didn't have a deputy either (78 on roll)
Is the current heads team staying? If so that's good news as they'll have a clear vision of what they are doing. We lost 2 teachers (out of 4) so no-one knew what they were doing.