By Vivienne Russell
25 September 2009
The number of vacant head teacher posts fell last year, according to the latest annual survey of the education labour market.
The survey, conducted by Education Data Surveys on behalf of the National Association of Head Teachers and Association of School and College Leaders, was published on September 25.
It shows that head teacher turnover remains high but the number of unfilled posts fell between September 2008 and May 2009 compared with the previous year.
Some 26% of primary, 19% of secondary and 27% of special school head teacher vacancies were reported unfilled. This compares with 32% of primary, 21% of secondary and 38% of special schools last year.
Head teacher leaders said the improvement in the recruitment rate did not justify Schools Secretary Ed Balls’ plan to cut senior staff through school federations and save £2bn from the education budget.
Mick Brookes, NAHT general secretary, said it was ‘galling that this slight improvement in recruitment to the top job has met with misjudged recent comments from the secretary of state’.
He added that ‘significant numbers’ of schools continued to struggle to fill headship vacancies, while the ‘ever expanding and uncontrollable’ workload did not encourage rank and file teachers to step up to the plate.
John Dunford, general secretary of ASCL, said: ‘Strong leadership teams are essential to successful schools and the government should continue to give priority to recruiting talented staff into senior leadership positions. While there may be good reasons for federating schools under a single leadership team, saving money is not one of them.
‘The government must do more to address the fundamental issues of increased workload and pressure on senior leaders and offer salaries and working conditions that are commensurate with the high expectations now placed on them.’
The survey also revealed that the percentage of women appointed to headships in the secondary sector was 44% – a significant increase on last year’s figure of 31%. Primary and special schools both appoint substantially more women than men as head teachers.
Dunford said the increase in women coming into secondary head jobs was ‘encouraging news’.
‘We hope that last year’s dip was an aberration and that this continues on a upward trend.’
A Department for Children, Schools and Families spokesman said: ‘It’s important to remember that this study looks at advertisements for posts. Schools will obviously start looking long before the current head leaves, so it does not tell us anything about actual current vacancies. In fact, the vacancy rate is low and stable at around 1% of posts and has been for some years.’
He added that head teachers had enjoyed a 29% real-terms pay increase since 1997.
25 September 2009
The number of vacant head teacher posts fell last year, according to the latest annual survey of the education labour market.
The survey, conducted by Education Data Surveys on behalf of the National Association of Head Teachers and Association of School and College Leaders, was published on September 25.
It shows that head teacher turnover remains high but the number of unfilled posts fell between September 2008 and May 2009 compared with the previous year.
Some 26% of primary, 19% of secondary and 27% of special school head teacher vacancies were reported unfilled. This compares with 32% of primary, 21% of secondary and 38% of special schools last year.
Head teacher leaders said the improvement in the recruitment rate did not justify Schools Secretary Ed Balls’ plan to cut senior staff through school federations and save £2bn from the education budget.
Mick Brookes, NAHT general secretary, said it was ‘galling that this slight improvement in recruitment to the top job has met with misjudged recent comments from the secretary of state’.
He added that ‘significant numbers’ of schools continued to struggle to fill headship vacancies, while the ‘ever expanding and uncontrollable’ workload did not encourage rank and file teachers to step up to the plate.
John Dunford, general secretary of ASCL, said: ‘Strong leadership teams are essential to successful schools and the government should continue to give priority to recruiting talented staff into senior leadership positions. While there may be good reasons for federating schools under a single leadership team, saving money is not one of them.
‘The government must do more to address the fundamental issues of increased workload and pressure on senior leaders and offer salaries and working conditions that are commensurate with the high expectations now placed on them.’
The survey also revealed that the percentage of women appointed to headships in the secondary sector was 44% – a significant increase on last year’s figure of 31%. Primary and special schools both appoint substantially more women than men as head teachers.
Dunford said the increase in women coming into secondary head jobs was ‘encouraging news’.
‘We hope that last year’s dip was an aberration and that this continues on a upward trend.’
A Department for Children, Schools and Families spokesman said: ‘It’s important to remember that this study looks at advertisements for posts. Schools will obviously start looking long before the current head leaves, so it does not tell us anything about actual current vacancies. In fact, the vacancy rate is low and stable at around 1% of posts and has been for some years.’
He added that head teachers had enjoyed a 29% real-terms pay increase since 1997.
