The headteacher crisis
The shortage of headteachers nationwide is a problem that threatens to turn into a crisis in the next few years.
It is already acute in some parts of the country. In some inner London boroughs, headteacher vacancies are around five per cent (the national average is one per cent) and as many as 50% of posts have to be readvertised because too few suitable candidates come forward. Faith schools and small primaries also have particular problems with recruiting leaders.
One cause is demographics: far more heads are retiring - some going early - than are emerging to replace them and the problem is expected to worse in the next couple of years.
But the issue is more complex than a bulge in the retirement pipeline. Of those assistant heads, deputies and lower tiers of school leadership who might be expected to aspire to the top job, too many are turning their backs on it.
Their perception is that the job is too personally demanding and relentless to be worth taking on. The increased levels of accountability for heads today and the need constantly to demonstrate effectiveness with endless sets of data adds to the deterrent effect. Teachers are also put off by the fact that more time on management and strategy means less time - if any - spent with children, the reason they came into the job in the first place.
There are other issues, to do with alternative career pathways that make senior management roles seem less appealing to younger teachers and mean the headteacher role is not the natural crowning glory to a career it once was. Advanced Skills Teachers, for example, assume more curriculum responsibility and get to vary their dayto- day job by working with other schools, as well as being better paid than a classroom teacher.
Even when teachers do appear to be aspiring to headship, not all of them see it through: of candidates taking the National Professional Qualification for Headship - the statutory requirement for all new heads - only around ten in every 100 go on to become headteachers within five years.
As things stand, the headteacher shortage is expected to reach a peak by 2009 and it’s estimated that, to make up the shortfall, the number of school leaders will need to increase on today’s figures by 15 to 20%.
The National College for School Leadership has collated the research around the headteacher problem and has put forward possible solutions, including more job-shares for heads and greater use of federation and executive head-style arrangements, where a head leads more than one school
In the long term, fundamental to any solution will be encouraging more people to go for headship than is currently the case.
At a series of regional conferences, the College has been consulting more than 1,000 heads and deputies, representatives of local authorities, professional bodies and governors on ways to encourage more staff to add headship to their list of career aims.
It is also working with schools, local authorities and dioceses in ten pilot areas to help them develop their strategies to replace headteachers who will retire from the profession in the next three years.
Each pilot area has been given key information about their area to help them to set priorities. It includes projections for the number of senior leaders needed each year for the next ten years, the pool of candidates with NPQH and the proportion of small schools and schools of a religious character - both types of schools that experience difficulty in recruiting headteachers
Steve Munby, NCSL chief executive, says it is essential to find more new leaders at every stage of the system.
“That is particularly relevant today, when projections indicate that more headteachers will be retiring each year over the next three years. We have to act quickly to identify those with the potential to become headteachers and senior school leaders.”
The pilots will uncover activities that can make a difference, he adds.
“We will be able to share what works with schools, professional associations, diocesan bodies and all those in education. We need everyone to focus on this challenge.”
Professional associations and unions are also concerned about the shortage of heads. Mick Brookes, General Secretary of the National Association of Headteachers, which is supporting the NCSL pilots, says the Government also had a part to play expanding the numbers of aspiring heads by making the role less taxing.
“As part of the [NCSL] working group, we have made it clear that alongside this excellent work, we expect the Government to review the excessive demands on school leaders to encourage retention as well as recruitment.
John Dunford, General Secretary of the Association of School and College Leaders, said that a recent ASCL survey had found that 85% of secondary heads would reapply for their own job - indicating that many still find it a rewarding profession, despite the drawbacks.
“However…not enough teachers are seeing the benefits of applying for senior positions,” he adds
NAHT and ASCL have argued that changing the role of the headteacher - reducing accountability in particular - is critical to making the role more appealing. They and the College have contributed to a review being carried out for the Department for Education by management specialists PricewaterhouseCoopers in to school leadership. A report is due in December [2006]. It is expected to recommend a variety of new models of headship that can work in different contexts.
It will be up to the Education Secretary whether or not to allow fundamental changes to the role of the headteacher to be made in order to ease the burden on individuals, render the role more appealing
The headteacher role has changed dramatically even in the last five years, raising some complex issues for the profession and for Government. All the evidence suggests that more changes will be necessary in the near future if the looming headteacher crisis is to be prevented.