A new report by the Education Policy Institute (EPI), funded by
the Nuffield Foundation, explores headteachers' and future
headteachers' movements throughout their careers. It shows that
some schools, particularly in the North West, West Midlands, East
of England and South East, risk isolation from professional
networks, while others are disproportionately able to attract
talent. This follows EPI's previous study, which
found that effective headteachers can improve pupils' attainment
by up to 2 GCSE grades. The new study finds:
- School leaders and future leaders tend to operate in tightly
connected ‘communities'. These are groups of schools, often
within the same region, where headteachers and future
headteachers are more likely to switch jobs, over a ten-year
period.
- A headteacher, or future headteacher, in a secondary school
is 20 times more likely to move to a school within the same
community than to a school in another community. For primary
schools, they are nine times more likely to remain within the
same community.
- This creates ‘isolated' schools, which are not connected to
others through headteachers' and future headteachers' movements.
These schools will likely not benefit as much as others from the
knowledge, expertise and best practice of the most talented
future leaders and leaders.
- The North West has the largest proportion of isolated primary
schools (20 per cent), while isolated secondary schools are
concentrated in the West Midlands, East of England, and South
East, each of them having around 15 per cent of the isolated
schools in England.
- Highly effective headteachers are not being drawn to low
attaining or low disadvantaged schools, which could mean that
these schools are not receiving the leadership talent they need
most.
- London attracts more than half of the most effective primary
school headteachers, although less than half develop their skills
there. Meanwhile, the North East seems effective at attracting
and developing the best performing secondary school headteachers,
training a fifth of the country's most effective secondary school
headteachers and drawing a quarter of them to the region.
Recommendations:
-
Supporting isolated schools: Local areas
should create structures to help spread good practice to
isolated schools, which may lack the benefit of shared
information from other schools. Multi academy trusts (MATs) and
local headteacher networks can be vital in this role.
Additionally, "Grow Your Own" (GYO) schemes that would support
local teachers to become leaders in their local schools could
address potential difficulties in recruiting and retaining
leadership in those regions.
-
Adjusting recruitment policies: Headteachers
often move within local areas, so recruitment and retention
strategies should be tailored to the specific needs and
dynamics of local communities. The DfE should prioritise
their support to local areas empowering them to address the
challenges of their regions.
-
Incentivising leadership in challenging
schools: There is a misalignment between the placement
of the most effective headteachers and the schools that need
them most, such as those with higher levels of disadvantaged
pupils or lower attainment. MATs and local authorities should
explore ways to incentivise successful headteachers to take on
leadership roles in these challenging schools.
-
Understanding knowledge flows within communities and
alignment with MAT model: More research is needed on
how knowledge and information flows between schools within each
community. Additionally, it is important to investigate whether
the identified communities align with the structure of MATs.
This would help understand whether knowledge gaps caused by low
headteacher mobility can be mitigated by MAT networks.
-
Understanding regional success in training, recruiting,
and retaining effective leadership: More analysis is
required to understand why regions such as London and the North
East produce and attract a disproportionately high number of
very effective headteachers. These insights could help inform
strategies for replicating this success in other areas.
Dr Joana Cardim Dias, Senior Researcher, School Workforce
said:
“Our research highlights that many schools across the
country are often isolated and do not benefit from experience
from the most talented leaders and headteachers. The government
needs to encourage more localised movement across communities of
schools and multi academy trusts should consider how they grow
and deploy their own leaders in order to spread best
practice.
Improving our understanding of how to grow talented teachers and
leaders, as well as incentivising them to work in the most
disadvantaged schools could be a powerful tool in helping to
tackle geographic inequalities and close the disadvantage
gap.”
Ruth Maisey, Programme Head, Nuffield Foundation
said:
“It is critical that schools are able to recruit and retain
effective headteachers given the significant effect they have on
pupils' outcomes. This research clearly demonstrates that local
areas need to be empowered to address the challenges of their
region since not everything can be achieved at a national
level.”
Background and methodology
To identify the networks of senior leaders, we follow the
movements of all teachers who become headteachers between 2010
and 2019 and identify the schools that are linked by those
movements. By examining the way those movements cluster schools,
we can see the ‘communities' of connected schools in England. We
then explore how likely these staff are to stay in those same
communities during their career, and the characteristics of the
communities. Finally, we describe the features of schools that
produce and attract highly effective leaders.
