New school for Y7, head leaving

[BewareTheBeardedDragon]

My dc starting secondary in Sept, and going to a local school that was completely failing a few years ago. It became part of an excellent academy group in town and a new head went in and totally turned it around so that it's now really good and oversubscribed. It's really been sold to local parents and the head has been a fundamental part of the renewed appeal.

Now it's just been announced that head is leaving at Xmas. How worried should I be?

A really good head drives the changes, engages and skills their staff to continue them, and is then no longer specifically needed.

That's interesting, hope that's the case here 😬🤞

Very common with academies. These super heads that come and fix things, then pass the baton onto another head that's probably in for a longer stint. The super heads eventually become CEOs

I just hope they can get someone good. I guess it's a more tempting draw now it's a good and in demand school?

This will depend on who they get. If other staff move on, little has been gained. I have seen this happen a lot. The teachers sometimes follow the head out. So you have to trust the governors and MAT that a good head has been found. As there is not a great pool of heads, it is not easy.

@PresentingPercy As there is not a great pool of heads, it is not easy.

This. The headteacher recruitment crisis is bigger than the teacher one. A good one is harder to find than a physics teacher.

Oh crap.

Who the other teachers are will make a difference. All excellent schools I have ever known don't just become or are such because of the head.

Yes - all the teachers I've met have been great, I'm now just worried about them following the head. Argh.

@BewareTheBeardedDragon Well
obviously they might not all leave. Depends on where the former head went and how strong they were as a team, as opposed to having alliegance to your school. Unless you have another choice of school, there’s not much point of going through the “what if” scenarios. Hopefully the new head will be ok.

Depends. A change in head can be good if you have heads to thrive on challenges and then leave when the change is achieved. Other have a clash in style with the school/trust and you have a school who struggles.

When DD started Y7 the previous head retired. 4 years later the new head went again.

I think in her case the new head tried to change too much and got too much resistance from parents and teaching staff. Too much felt like "I want it my way and I ignore other people's opinions". She came from a previously failed inner city school and returned to similar school. I think a leafy London suburb high achieving school just didn't fit her.

The next head just joined and reversed already several points parents commented negatively about in the last years.

@reluctantbrit sounds like a school with a difficult parent body!

Hmm, not sure.
The new head cancelled the second MFL, so all girls just had one language from Y7-11.
Some performing art subjects was dropped or significantly reduced.
"Enrichment" was introduced to show a variety of subjects and also to mix year groups, taught in normal lesson time hence the cutting of MFL/arts. Things like 6x Latin or astronomy or podcasting a term, DD mainly said she was utterly bored.
After school clubs were reduced to music and competitive sport only.
School trips were vastly reduced even before Covid and hardly anything after for the year groups who missed out. Money is not a problem in the area the school covers and other schools in the area do a lot more.

The school's results were always just behind the grammars in our area, totally oversubscribed and very popular. Lots of girls stayed for 6th form instead of moving.
That all changed, results were still quite good but staff turnover increased and application decreased the last two years.

@reluctantbrit I would have hated that for DDs. No second MFL would have “killed” DD1. She’s a musician and a bit of an actor too! So perfectly dreadful for Dc like her.

It is common to be honest, the head who is leaving was probably only brought in for a couple of years to get it back to where it needs to be and then move on - seems this is what this Head has done. What’s the Deputies like? It could be that one of them are promoted to Headteacher?

I’m sure whoever is appointed, the governors will have it in their best interests to appoint an excellent practitioner who is capable of continuing to move the school forward.

The Trust shouldn't let the school go downhill, the changes have been put in, now they need to be embedded

You can't control this, so you have to let it go. Good heads are like hen's teeth these days and an ambitious, competent, driven head will be in high demand - especially when he's proven himself. This could happen at any school you choose.

He will have put systems in place, have had a team around him, and these will very likely survive him. Just wait and see - no use worrying until you have some evidence there is something to worry about.

I know I can't do anything about it. Other new parents have been countering about it and I wanted an unbiased view on whether this is an unmitigated disaster as some seem to think. Deputy head seems excellent and the school has thus far impressed me with how they are handling transition for my autistic son so I'll just keep my fingers crossed.

Chuntering not countering

@BewareTheBeardedDragon Parents no doubt remember the bad times. Also, as it’s part of a MAT, one would hope they could have access to decent applicants from other schools. Sometimes deputies are not suitable as heads and some do not want it anyway. Hopefully they will be rigorous and get the right person.

It's always best to ignore chuntering parents!

It is hard to tell, when a head "turns a school around" like this, it is normally 90% PR job and 10% expelling, or constructively encouraging removal of the worst behaved/lowest ability element.

Why was it failing? What has changed?

I think most of the teachers have changed from when it was failing, behaviour is certainly genuinely miles different - this is based on both visits and current parents experiences, it was threatened with closure - before things got so bad, I think the council wanted to close it for budget reasons which lead to less and less students and probably less staff engagement. It had the threat of closure over it for some years, and the academy trust has removed that issue. I don't think it is just a PR job. Hopefully.

I doubt it is a disaster, sad to read of other parents exaggerating.

@BewareTheBeardedDragon It’s impossible to just do a PR job and get exam results up and engage students and teachers in your ethos. Let alone get a PR job past Ofsted. There’s usually a huge amount of work that has gone on and it’s over-simplifying things to say parents are hoodwinked by PR alone.

Of course the outgoing head might have been a great communicator but parents must have noticed improvements. Often an approach to behaviour has several strands. A clear behaviour expectation, strong support of teachers in the classroom and a behaviour policy that’s fair and carried out. Yes, sometimes those with poor behaviour can be excluded but many more behave better. Poor teaching is looked at too. Children make good progress by receiving high quality teaching. So a good head expects high standards of teaching.

The key attributes for a school to remain good is for the curriculum to be excellent, taught well and Dc to behave well. Plus no holes in safeguarding, all Dc to make progress and have appropriate exam results. It’s hard but hopefully the new head will be a great leader too.