Professor Toby Greany introduces the next theme from the Sustainable School Leadership research report :
5. Preparing for headship – the importance of developmental experience
A surprisingly large proportion of heads (between a quarter and a third in each nation) describe their pathway to headship as accidental – they “never really intended to become a head”. This contrasts with just 10-15% who “always wanted to be a head,” suggesting that leadership formation pathways & identity development processes need careful attention.
England & Scotland fund national headship preparation programmes, but they differ widely in their structure, scale, ethos & design. In Scotland, the mandatory ‘Into Headship’ programme’s focus is on partnership working at national & local scales, the reinforcement of shared values, M-level learning, & the agentic enactment of national policy. England’s non-mandatory model (NPQH) reflects a more marketised and accountability-focused mindset, with leaders positioned as technicians delivering evidence-based improvement & a near absence of discussion around professional values & purposes.
These formal programmes are only part of the story. In all three nations, coaching & mentoring, role models, & learning on the job are seen as more effective in preparing for headship than formal qualifications.
In England, we saw sharp differences among the 3 localities we visited (City, Coast & Shire) in how leadership development & succession planning operate: while the MATs in Coast could offer development which goes above & beyond the national NPQ offer, in rural Shire, there was much less capacity for such enhanced provision.
In Scotland, while Into Headship is broadly valued, its mandatory & academic nature was sometimes critiqued, creating a potential block on the leadership pipeline.
In Northern Ireland, the lack of a national pre-headship programme was seen to make recruitment harder.
Serving heads are unequivocal that they did not feel fully prepared for the role when they first started. Indeed, a substantial proportion (e.g. 30% in England) began their headship journey lacking confidence. Serving heads see prior developmental experience as the best preparation for headship, but this is about more than just ‘time served’ – interviewees talked about times when they were stretched to develop & grow, enabling them to become confident in a range of operational & strategic areas. However, there are stark differences in the extent to which individual leaders curate their experience and careers in preparation for headship.
Sustainable School Leadership 