Are HT’s being replaced with Exec Heads now?

[SouthWestisBest]

I’m an AHT in a secondary school and all our schools on the MAT are moving across to exec headteachers.

we have 6 secondary and 7 primary. All the secondary heads will oversee the primaries. One secondary HT will oversee 3 schools?
The primary headteachers are being offered alternative leadership support roles in the trust or Head of School roles.

Anyone else heard of this? Seems berserk and cost cutting exercise to streamline and amalgamate schools.

I’ve known it happen especially in cases where there is a vacancy but never long term.

Can see the reasons behind it, but it definitely wouldn’t be cost cutting as you suggest, as they wouldn’t be making redundancies - the HT’s will be redeployed elsewhere.

As someone who has been a secondary headteacher for 19 years and has just moved into a senior leadership role for the MAT - I think you’ll be causing more damage to school leadership unless the end goal is for the schools to be permanently amalgamated which doesn’t seem the case in your post.

Given the quality of some primary headteachers I have known, and the difficulty many primary schools have recruiting headteachers in some areas, it sounds like it could be a very sensible decision.

i think it is a cost-cutting measure, if not immediate. In 10 years time they will have halved the budget for heads.

I think this will be a bad move for the primary schools. IME exec heads (and MATs) fail a school where they insist on implementing things that work for school A, in school B without considering individual difference. Yes, sharing good practice and expertise is good, but MATs seem to do this in a bull in a china shop method- not everything works in the same way everywhere.