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Keeping your head

Take part in our national online discussion about strategies to retain headteachers and other senior leaders.

Toolkit for governors

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Retaining headteachers

Retaining headteachers

Many headteachers and senior leaders are opting for early retirement or a career change. What can we do, as governors, to create conditions that encourage experienced leaders to remain in our schools or within the system?

Why we need to retain good leaders

As well as building a supply of good leaders by identifying and developing those with leadership potential, it is also important to consider ways of keeping existing talented school leaders. Not only will this reduce the number of vacant leadership posts in the school system, but it will also ensure that the talent of experienced headteachers remains available to support others.

Some schools explore options to retain talented and experienced headteachers, asking their headteacher to remain in role, accommodating any changes. This means the school has continuity and the headteacher can carry on doing the job they love, but on terms they find satisfactory to their professional aspirations and life choices.

This might mean making the job attractive and stimulating enough to keep a headteacher engaged, providing professional development opportunities or the chance to gain experience outside the school on secondments or as advisors to local or national bodies.

Ensuring your school leaders enjoy a reasonable work-life balance also comes into play here. The most dedicated heads can become jaded by the pressures of the job and the effect it has on their family and personal lives. Enabling the head to share leadership responsibilities with other senior leaders is one way to ease the strain, as well as being a good professional development opportunity for those aspiring to leadership. The right strategy for worklife balance has to be tailored to the needs of the individual and the best interests of the school.

What methods could we consider?

The following examples of headteacher retention are quotes taken from the interactive online resource, The issue of retention.

Phased retirement

"I was head of a school for 12 years taking it from having serious weaknesses to being rated as ‘good’. I was then recruited to lead another school in similar circumstances and raise its performance. After four years at the second school I decided it was time to take early retirement and informed the governors of my intentions. Their reaction was to offer me phased retirement in the form of a two-year part-time contract as a consultant acting in the role of headteacher. This enabled me to remain in post while a suitable replacement was appointed and ensured a smooth transition. I was able to reduce my workload and receive some pension as well as my salary.”

New challenges

“Having been head of a successful secondary school for five years I reached a point where I felt I could do more for other young people in the area. When a local school was struggling I felt a moral imperative to help out for the benefit of all the children. The difficulty would be to fulfil my current leadership role as well as taking on the new challenge. The solution was to work with the head of the school in special measures to create a distributed leadership model. I continued to lead my original school three days a week as principal with a talented deputy taking the headship role in my absence. The other two days I spent in the other school as executive principal.”

Flexibility

“As head I led my school from a position of serious weakness to a period of stability. I found the role challenging and energising, but after a number of years I realised that it had taken over my life completely and I was not able to be a good mother to my young child. I decided to resign and move out of the school system. However the governors offered me the option to work at home one day a week so that I could take my child to school and pick him up on that day. I was still a full-time head but the increased flexibility was exactly right for my needs at that point in time and enabled me to continue in post.”

Action checklist for retaining headteachers

We have developed a checklist to help you identify short and longer-term actions. Questions to consider include: "Can we clearly state the things that motivate our headteacher?" and "Do we know how our headteacher views their work-life balance and what support he or she needs?"

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