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| Do schools need headteachers? Geoff Barton Click here for a print version of this article. Q: What is the collective noun signifying a group of headteachers? A: A "lack" of principals, of course. Boom boom. There's a crowd-pleaser that never fails to entertain the staffroom. But whilst as a joke it's not bad, the impending crisis of headteacher recruitment – a genuine case of lack of principals – lurches suddenly closer as the new school year opens. According to the National College for School Leadership a demographic time bomb is beginning to engulf us. Here's how they described the problem in 2006: 'Nearly a quarter of heads are aged over 55, and as they retire over the next 5 years, the profession will be deprived of a great swathe of experienced leaders. At the same time, too few new candidates are putting themselves forward for the role.'People expect leadership to be high-profile and visible, they need to know who's boss and where they are. It's an issue that has always interested me about schools. The best headteachers I've worked with have been the ones who have stalked the corridors, taken assemblies, endlessly interacted with pupils and staff. But it might be that this is now an old-fashioned and unsustainable picture of school leadership if the recruitment crisis is to be overcome. Some people argue that ultimately it's a conception of headship which is actually self-defeating and even egocentric. They might point out that junior doctors at the local hospital probably aren't worrying unduly about whether the chief executive of the hospital trust is in the building. The cashiers in our supermarkets may not be fretting that the store manager isn't within eye contact. Should schools be any different? As leadership guru, Professor John MacBeath wrote earlier this year: 'Schools don't need charismatic heads. That kind of leadership disempowers. It makes everybody else into followers. A teacher can be a leader; so can a pupil. It's about creating a culture where the youngest child or youngest teacher has scope to come up with an idea.'So it may be that in the coming year there are two things we could do to help develop the next generation of school leaders. We could give higher priority to highlighting the attractive features, the benefits and rewards of being a school leader. Hearing about the good bits – to counter all the negative stuff that swirls around at results times (falling standards) and after Ofsted reports – might encourage staff who think it's all about crushing accountability, paperwork and conflict to see how much of the role is deeply rewarding, hugely creative and – dare I say it – real fun. Second, new models of school leadership are rejecting the idea that every school needs its own autonomous headteacher. Federations, executive and associate headships are showing that system leadership – schools working collaboratively under single leaders – is making a big impact. So now our parents, our governors, our staff and others in the community need to see the benefits of this approach because it runs counter to what we used to think. Not having a headteacher in every school– as Professor MacBeath suggests – may actually prove a liberating factor in developing the leadership of other staff and raise standards for pupils. It means the achievement of the pupils at the school across town should count just as much to all of us as the results in our own school. And that will require a change of mindset for lots of people, not least those of us who assumed that the role of the headteacher was to stalk the corridors. Perhaps we need to develop a more grown-up view of what leadership actually means in practice. Geoff Barton is headteacher of King Edward VI School and a NET Leading Thinker. |
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