Recruitment process step 2: defining the need

This stage involves clarifying the needs of the school, and specifying the role of the school leader and the characteristics of the ideal candidate.

What you decide at this stage forms the basis for an advertisement, the information for candidates, your shortlisting criteria, the selection techniques and interview questions, your assessment of candidates’ performance and the appointment decision.

Reviewing your school's needs

The need to appoint a new headteacher is a chance to refresh or reinforce the governing body’s vision for leadership of the school, and to revisit what you need from a head.

Reviewing the key documents and data for your school should help you identify current and future needs. This might give you seven or eight criteria that you can build into the job description and person specification.

Look at your school's self-evaluation form (SEF)

Your school’s SEF will help you identify factors that influence the role and characteristics of your next headteacher. You could look at:

your school’s aims and special features
the characteristics of learners at your school
issues that act as aids or barriers to raising performance
your school’s priorities for improvement
the views of learners, parents or carers and other stakeholders
how well learners achieve
the quality of learners’ personal development and well-being
the quality of provision (teaching and learning, curriculum and support for pupils)
the strength of leadership and management, including any gaps in knowledge, skills or experience
your school’s effectiveness and efficiency

Look at other data and materials

Data on the school’s performance will also help you to identify the priorities for teaching and learning.

Documents such as the Children Act 2004 and Every Child Matters will help you understand the school’s direction.

You will find the legal definition of the role of headteacher in the School Teachers’ Pay and Conditions Document 2008. There are also national standards for the role of headteacher.

You should also take into account the context of the school and the community it serves, which will have an impact on the type of person needed to lead it into its next phase of development. These include:

current levels of pupil achievement and the school’s overall performance
the development needs of the school
make-up of the local community
the school’s situation in respect of student numbers
budget
the likelihood of any major new initiative taking place, for example building work or extended services

Writing a job description

The job description lists the headteacher’s professional accountabilities and tasks.

Many governing bodies save time by starting with a sample and customising it. There are many styles of job description and an internet search for ‘job description headteacher’ will lead you to examples. Your local authority or consultant will have others and the job description for your current head may also be a useful starting point.

Make sure that any sample you use has been updated recently and that your completed job description really does reflect the job to be done in your school.

The format of job descriptions varies, but you should include:

job details – basic information including job title and who the job reports to
purpose – a short and accurate statement of why the job exists
dimensions – the significant areas on which the job has an impact, providing numerical data to give a feel for the scope and scale of the job as it affects students, staff and finances
principal accountabilities – the outputs of the job, focusing on results, not duties or activities, and telling the ‘what’, not the ‘how'
competences – the inputs of the job (knowledge, skills, behaviours, attitudes)
performance standards – statements of performance measures
organisation chart – a pictorial representation of where the job fits into the school
context – supporting information about the context in which the job operates

Writing a person specification

The person specification details the knowledge, skills, experience, abilities and personal qualities you seek in your ideal candidate. It should be based on the job description.

The criteria for the person specification can be grouped in a number of ways. As with the job description, you could review some samples to see what suits your school best.

Headings might include: qualifications, experience, professional knowledge, professional skills, philosophy and commitment, and personal qualities. Alternatively, after detailing the necessary qualifications and experience, you might group the criteria using the National Standards for Headteachers headings.

Shaping the future
Leading learning and teaching
Developing self and working with others
Leading and managing the organisation
Securing accountability
Strengthening community through collaboration and partnership

Try to keep to just seven or eight criteria against which to judge candidates. Be disciplined in deciding which aspects are really essential and which are just nice to have.

National Professional Qualification for Headship (NPQH)

NPQH is a threshold qualification and signals readiness for headship. This does not mean that everyone with NPQH will be a suitable headteacher for your school, but it does mean that basic, generic knowledge, aptitudes and skills have been tested.

Equal opportunities and anti-discrimination legislation

A fair process will start the relationship with your new headteacher in a positive way. It will also help to avoid appeals, or even litigation, from candidates who feel they have been unfairly treated.

By law, the governing body must not discriminate against an applicant for a post on grounds of gender, race, disability, religion or belief, sexual orientation or age. However:

direct age discrimination is not unlawful if it can be shown to be justified objectively
there is specific provision for schools of a religious character to appoint up to one-fifth of their staff (including the headteacher) on the grounds of their fitness and competence to give the religious education that is required
there are specific legal provisions in the case of genuine occupational requirements for a particular job

Your local authority or diocesan adviser will give you more information about equal opportunities and discrimination. You should also consult A Guide to the Law for School Governors.

Things to consider

No recruitment process can be successful without a clear and relevant definition of the role and the qualities you are looking for.
What has worked well for your school in the past may not work as well in the future; what works well for other schools may not work in yours.
Gather a wide range of sources of evidence about the school’s needs and seek objective advice and challenge. Pay particular attention to the self-evaluation form.
Test the logic of the connections between the school’s needs and the attributes you are looking for by ensuring the attributes are individually necessary and collectively sufficient.
Be realistic.
Consider the current leadership team and how the skills and abilities of its members could complement those of the headteacher. What is well covered and where are the gaps?
Write a job description that is based on templates but is unique to your school.
Write a person specification that describes the essential, desirable and threshold attributes required. Base your selection criteria on these attributes.
Limit your essential criteria to a manageable number (6–10) that will really make a difference.
Consider not only skills and knowledge, but behaviours, attributes, characteristics, values and motivation.

Checklist for defining the role

By the end of the definition stage you will have:

a clear idea about the current and future needs of the school
an analysis of the skills and experience already in the leadership team
a definition of the skills and experience you are seeking in a new headteacher
a job description and a person specification