Headteacher shortage persists
Jess Brown
Monday, June 6, 2016
There is a shortage of headteachers in England, organisations warn, just weeks before schools are set to reopen for September.
The shortages are due to the Ofsted inspection regime and growing pressures, according to leading voices in the sector.
The shortage is “severe,” particularly in primary schools, and the system needs to be reviewed by government, according to Mark Wright, assistant director at ATL.
Difficulty recruiting candidates, he said, leads to "increased costs for re-advertisements and many governing bodies resort to lavishing vast expense on specialist recruitment firms in an effort to fill this key role.
“Given the shortage, there is a greater appetite for executive heads to be running more than one school.
“Although the government talks of austerity, it needs to review this deeply inefficient system whereby millions is wasted in trying to recruit heads who then, on average, do not enjoy a long tenure largely due to lack of support.”
Fresh warnings of shortages come after a survey found that over one in four academy heads left their role last year. The reasons for the shortage, the survey stated, was partly because of Ofsted’s inspection regime.
“A tougher Ofsted inspection regime may be encouraging more governing boards to remove existing heads, and discouraging candidates from applying to fill vacant posts,” the survey stated.
The warnings also follow a Freedom of Information request revealed a shortage of headteachers in Scottish primary and secondary schools.
Christine Blower, general secretary at NUT, says there is a “clear recruitment crisis” in teaching.
“Government rhetoric certainly has not helped matters, and this is sadly destined to continue.”
"The forthcoming Education and Adoption Bill seeks to target 'coasting' schools, with the threat of new leadership and academisation and no consultation at up to 1,000 schools, many of them primaries.
"Education Secretary Nicky Morgan makes this reckless proposal with complete disregard for the fact that these schools will struggle to find new head teachers. In such a climate, the head teacher shortage will only get worse.”
Valentine Mulholland, policy advisor at the National Association of Head Teachers (NAHT), said, “the increasingly punitive accountability framework and the growing pressures of the role are deterring deputy heads from applying from headship roles and existing heads from taking on schools that present a high risk”.
“It is reported to us as a significant issue from our members and local authorities and academies, who are often struggling, and sometimes failing, to appoint to head teacher roles.
“Long-term arrangements of a deputy head acting up into a role, or a neighbouring head taking on two schools, can continue for far too long. We hear that employers are often getting only three or four applications for roles, and the issues are particularly acute for schools working in challenging circumstances.”
Mulholland said there needs to be “more carrot and less stick” in order to encourage quality candidates to apply for headteacher roles, as well as “recognition that it can take up to five years to turn around a failing school”.
Emma Knights, chief executive of the NGA said:
“Our members, who are governors and trustees across England, are reporting to us more often that they are having trouble finding candidates to appoint.
"In our most recent survey 43 per cent of those who had recently recruited reported that they had found it difficult or very difficult to attract good candidates."
"We suspect this is because the job is becoming more high profile and rightly so, because it’s about children’s education and involves significant amounts of public funding.
“We need to support existing heads and provide new ones with mentors. But there also needs to be more thought given to this by central government to ensure that people feel this is a job they want to do and to know that it is enormously rewarding.”