HOD- starting to experience a lot of anxiety over exam results

[Supermummy88]

Good evening all,
I just took on a new position as HOD of a humanities subject in September 2023. The school I work at are very results driven compared to other schools I’ve working at. The vice principal is my line manager and is putting a lot of pressure on me to get results…I’ve got very high targets to reach. This is a fairly new school and this year will be their second set of GCSE results. When I started the schemes of work were very poor and there were hardly any GCSE resources. The staff turnover has been very high and some teachers prior to when I started had deleted their resources before they left. I have worked exceptionally hard since I’ve started and have given this job my all. However, the mock results are still not what STL expect. I am now under a lot of stress and pressure to get results this summer…the VP has already told me that if the 9-5 percentage is not high enough then I’m doing something terribly wrong. I have now developed a lot of anxiety and I don’t know how many more evenings and weekends I can give up. I’ve got a husband and two young children.

Then the VP needs to provide some practical support rather than just telling you to work harder.

Have you analysed the mock result?
Do you know where the issues are?
Have you identified the easy win students vs the ones who need a lot of intervention?
How are SLT supporting that?

If I was in your position as a HoD now, I’d be analysing the dynamics of the department and moving teaching staff around. Inexperienced and ‘weaker’ teachers teaching KS3 classes and your most experienced / strong teachers teaching KS4 and 5. It’s going to cause disruption but it is what you need right now to get impact. You’ll need to liaise with the timetabler and the VP of these changes but I’d be looking to get onto the case today and make the changes effect from after February half term, so you’ve at least got 12 teaching weeks before exams.

If teachers are underperforming then that is your job to support or performance manage them or the VP will start performance managing you and the stress you have then will be off the scale to what you have now.

The problem here is that it’s a small school and the only teachers in the department are me and another teacher who isn’t very experienced and is facing major behaviour issues in his classes. He has recently come from abroad and is struggling. For the past 15 months I have been doing all the planning for KS3 and KS4. I have 3 year 11 GCSE classes and I’ve got to a point where I am very exhausted. I also only get 4 PPAs a week. The other geography teacher has a year 10 class and is really struggling…I told the VP that he shouldn’t be given a GCSE class because he was struggling so much with KS3, however, my opinion wasn’t taken into consideration. He is now on a support plan.

Okay. There are a few things you can sort, a few you need support with (and document all of this).

Behaviour.

Are your teachers following the system to the letter. And I mean setting detentions, recording everything, parental contact - the whole shebang, If yes, brilliant - get pastoral and the head of behaviour involved to deal with disruptive kids. If not, you need to manage that and hold your team accountable.

What is your departmental support system? Do you have removal rooms, do you take on some of the kids to give your teachers (and their classes) a break? Do you deal with students and their parents where your team needs support? All of that falls on you I'm afraid.

Curriculum.

Bit late in the day for massive overhaul. Most core subjects are staring revision. You need a decent basis covering all aspects of the spec. Great if you're delivering it already. Divvy it up, have everyone contribute to their areas of strength. Their responsibility to make key resources and find appropriate exam practice. Produce a bank of common, overlapping questions and get the kids to do extended practice once every 3-4 lessons. Have a plan in place for next year. Backup resources privately so arseholes with a grudge can't delete their stuff.

Other results things.

Parental contact to all underachievers with a breakdown of areas of concern. Leaflets with QR codes for resources for all learners. Speak to Heads of Year, form tutors, pastoral leads and Y11 mentors (such as your Lead Pracs). A bank of full resources for persistent absentees on whatever platform you use. After-school revision and holiday revision if you must. Robust cover lessons for absent staff - use oak academy if you must. Buy in revision guides (with parental contributions or nag someone in SLT with budget, for example PP).

Yes, all of that is on you. No, the TLR isn't worth it.

Document everything from the above list you've done. Document every lesson you lose to core subjects or workshops in the run up to exams. You prove you've done your bit, SLT will have to accept you cannot work miracles.

Lots of great ideas above but don't forget that mock results are often shit....that's why we do a mock. I always thinks piss poor leadership to not acknowledge any of the good work staff are doing or have done.

Imagine that I'm your line manager and I've just thanked you for all the amazing SoW you've made and the support you are giving the shit newbie from abroad. Then I've said something supportive like "I know crap newbie is driving down results but keep going, you've got this.

By the way in the next HoDs meeting we're going to share all our great intervention ideas. You would be feeling way more positive and a lot less anxious. We would never treat students this way so I don't understand why slt think it will work on staff.

Things I am doing which may or may not work for your subject. A weekly seneca homework for a different part of the spec. One retrieval quiz a week. Do now tasks with low tariff exam questions and skills. Fortnightly lunchtime revision. Emailed home a document with links and revision ideas. Lots of motivation in lessons house points / sweets etc. Mock reflection sheet for students to think about how well they prepared for the mock, what went badly and how they can fix it.