THE government has plans to abolish head teachers in schools and replace them with ‘Tesco-style chief executives’!
That is the warning being made by the teachers’ union, the NUT, which also blames the government for a growing recruitment crisis.
An independent study commissioned by the NUT found that ‘Bureaucracy, external interference, excessive regulation and lack of work-life balance’ were causing increasing frustration.
This is being exacerbated in primary schools by the ‘inadequate salaries’ primary heads receive, compared with their responsibilities.
The vast majority of head teachers resisted the idea that in future schools should be run by ‘chief executives’ without teaching experience, says the study.
There was virtual unanimity that head teachers must be drawn from those with classroom experience, since the special features of schools far outweighed any similarity with other organisations.
Heads should continue to be at the centre of teaching and learning, the study found.
It was carried out by Professor Alan Smithers and Dr Pamela Robinson, of the Centre for Education and Employment Research at the University of Buckingham.
‘Head teachers did not want the role to change into “Tesco managers going from branch to branch’’, rather they believe the government must end its unreasonable demands on them,’ the NUT said.
The University of Buckingham report concludes that the crisis in head teacher recruitment has been caused by the excessive demands of the government, not by anything intrinsic to the job itself.
It says: ‘The government should look to itself and ask whether its reforming zeal and policy of pressure from the centre is in the best interests of our schools.
‘The crisis, if there be one, seems to us to be government made.’
The head teachers interviewed for the report said that while many of their teaching staff were good head teacher material, the pressures of being head made many of them reluctant to consider applying for such posts.
Such a situation led to an impending recruitment crisis.
Vulnerability to sacking and excessive ‘accountability’ ruined the satisfaction head teachers got from teaching and learning and leading and developing staff.
Asked to describe what they did in a typical week, head teachers came up with a range of activities that took 30 categories to classify.
Primary school heads felt increasing stress because there was little flexibility in their smaller budgets.
Commenting on the report, NUT General Secretary Steve Sinnott said: ‘This research underlines the importance existing heads place on their role as leaders of a team of professionals.
‘Yet the range of activities they have to carry out – requiring 30 different headings to categorise them – and the constant imposition of new initiatives makes their task unending.
‘Recruiting from outside the profession is not the answer,’ Sinnott continued.
‘Moves to divorce the leadership of schools from teaching and learning and replacing heads with chief executives will make things worse.
‘If we are to avoid a severe crisis in recruiting new heads, the government must recognise its responsibility for creating the head teacher recruitment crisis.
‘Interference, constant imposition of initiatives and ever-growing bureaucratic demands must be ended.
‘The government must also look at ensuring proper salary levels for primary heads and improving the work-life balance of all rather than just paying lip service to the idea.’
Both secondary and primary heads identified work-life balance as a concern and attributed this mainly to the external impositions on them.
When asked how their roles had changed during the time in their posts, the head teachers responded with 58 types of externally-imposed initiatives, but were hard-pressed to think of any tasks that had been taken away from them, other than those they had delegated.
The length of service of the head teachers who took part in the study ranged from two terms to 22 years.
The major changes identified by the longer-serving heads were the financing of schools and the national curriculum.
But even those in post for only a year could list new ‘initiatives’ that they had to take on board.
Both primary and secondary heads regretted the extent and pace of change, which to them didn’t seem to have been fully thought through or backed up.
Secondary heads strongly opposed the idea of scrapping their jobs and handing schools over to ‘chief executives’ from outside the teaching profession.
Specialist help from finance officers and premises managers should be provided in support roles only, they told the study’s authors.
Primary heads said they were becoming overwhelmed by the number of duties being imposed on them, with fewer opportunities to delegate responsibility.
In a small primary school the head could be both the leadership team and a classroom teacher.
There was ‘near unanimity’ that head teachers should be drawn from among those with classroom experience.
The report said: ‘A variety of new ways of leading schools has emerged driven by pressures and ambitions.
‘Among those considered are the business model, a hard federation under a chief executive, a soft federation of collaborating schools, co-headships and changes associated with the Private Finance Initiative.
‘The National College for School Leadership and the Specialist Schools and Academies Trust are encouraging the development of federations, and the government hopes that the opportunity to achieve Trust Status, enabled in the latest Education and Inspections Act, will pave the way for the establishment of independent foundations.
‘The great majority of the head teachers in our sample remained sceptical.
‘At the end of the day who really is in charge – is it the person who is overseeing the federation or is it the person who is actually looking after the school itself?’
The report added: ‘Three quarters of the schools reported having teachers with the qualities to become a head teacher but who did not want to move up.
‘Nearly two-thirds of the primary heads thought that this was because the pay differential was not a sufficient incentive.
‘The heads of small schools complained that at the top of their scale they would be receiving less than a deputy of a larger school or the second in a department in a secondary school.
‘Overall, workload was the main reason the heads thought there were recruitment difficulties, with accountability a close second, particularly the vulnerability of the heads to sacking in the light of a bad Ofsted report.
‘Why should a comfortably placed teacher want to put his/her head above the parapet?’
About two-thirds of the heads surveyed for the NUT were also worried that the role of the Local Education Authority (LEA) ‘is diminishing’.
Secondary heads also spoke of a ‘dog eat dog’ competition between secondary schools created by the government’s policies.
