Navigating the unexpected: advice for school leaders

Key takeaways

• Accept that not everything in school leadership can be controlled. Unexpected events are part of the role! Flexibility and responsiveness are key to managing these challenges effectively.
• Embrace creativity when facing uncontrollable challenges. Try and view these moments as opportunities to think creatively and adapt, reframing problems as interesting challenges rather than obstacles.
• Build a supportive professional network to share resources, seek advice and generate solutions. Whether informal or through structured groups like trusts, these networks provide essential support in managing the unpredictability of school leadership.
• A strong network not only helps with practical problem-solving but also reduces the isolation that can come with being a headteacher. These connections are vital for long-term success.

Listen to the recording (10 minutes) or read an edited version below. 

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Josephine Smith is headteacher of Kesteven & Sleaford High School, part of the Robert Carre Trust. 

Liz: Jo, as a headteacher and school leader, one of the things I wanted to talk to you about was how you manage the uncontrollable factors in school life – things like pay rises coming in from the Department for Education (DfE), Ofsted visits – those things that are harder to manage.

Jo: Hi Liz, lovely to be with you and to have a chance to talk about navigating the tricky waters of school leadership. 

Every year we're faced with the uncontrollables, the curveballs, the things that we don't expect, and I think probably the arrogance of headteachers often makes us think that we can control everything. Even my own teenage children tell me in uncertain terms: Mum, you can't control everything!

And they're certainly right about that. We try really hard, and we try really hard to plan, but there are so many things in day to day work that you think you can prepare for but ultimately can't. 

A lot of them do come from the Department for Education, but some of them are societal. I suppose the pandemic was the ultimate uncontrollable. But whether they're small or big things, it's undoubtedly true that a flexible, responsive school leader is going to stay so much saner in the role and be able to exist in the role for longer – as soon as they accept that you cannot plan for everything. Yes, you're going to have to be accountable for things, but not everything can be anticipated. 

Unexpected staffing gaps

Liz: Could you give us an example of a curveball you’ve experienced in your headship recently, and how you’ve managed it? 

Jo: Absolutely. Something that might resonate on a fairly frequent and current level with most headteachers or school leaders (or aspirant school leaders) is what you do when you suddenly have an unexpected resignation from a staff member, maybe for a particularly important role – or when you get a series of them. 

I think that's something a lot of school leaders will identify with. Currently we're two weeks into this academic year and I've had two resignations from staff already. One of those totally expected, although that member of staff has taken a long time to find a role in a place they wanted, and I'd almost given up thinking that they were going to move on. The other came about through a change in that person’s personal circumstances. 

Any educationist will know that recruitment and retention is one of the biggest challenges of leadership. And there are lots of things that you can do, medium and long term, to try and make sure that you're succession planning in school, or that you are being as creative as you can be or as forward thinking as you can be about that succession planning.

At the school, we work with several SCITT providers and through that we have a pipeline of really good, effective teachers. I could appoint as many PE or history teachers as I wanted, but we're all clamouring for the maths and the physics teachers, for example.

So, what do you do when somebody resigns potentially at short notice? Both of the staff members who recently resigned were support staff rather than teaching staff, and therefore they only have to give a month's notice. That’s a month to advertise, shortlist, interview, and then conduct the safer recruitment checks that are needed before we can appoint someone. That's a tight turnaround. 

Get creative

So while you might have your succession plans in place, and even have job descriptions and details ready to go at the start of the year in anticipation of a role needing to be advertised, in reality, for a short time, you might need to be creative. And I think that one of the traits or the areas of the job that I actually enjoy most as a school leader is that kind of creativity.

An uncontrollable is tricky, difficult. There's probably going to be a gap in provision in my school in those two roles, and it’s creativity that’s needed to solve that. 

If you're a school leader, working around a problem is something that you can embrace, enjoy and thrive on. If your mindset can frame it as ‘an interesting challenge’ rather than ‘a problem’, that’s a good way to go. 

I think that creativity is a massively under-played and under-recognised skill in school leadership. Where in the NPQ programmes is the training for creativity? 

That’s my first go-to recommendation for managing the uncontrollable: don’t be afraid, and embrace the creativity needed to problem solve. 

Build your network

Liz: And if you don’t feel that creativity is your strength, can you draw on the talents of the people around you? 

Jo: Absolutely. That's a really neat segue to my second top tip: build your network. Know where to go for support. Develop that group of supportive professionals around you, the people you can pick up the phone to and say ‘I’ve got this problem’, and they’ll listen and might have some practical solutions for you. 

Building your network is probably one of the first things that I would recommend to any educational leader who's new in their role. And recognise that those networks flux and shift and change over time. 

For example, I work in a school where we have an informal arrangement between six headteachers. We try to meet termly. We come from similar school types. We're in a similar geographical area and we use our informal catch-ups to build an agenda each time we meet, so that there's purpose to our discussion.

We swap information, provide support, signpost resources to each other. We email each other with questions. ‘I’m really interested to know what percentage of your students are SEND, and how/if that differs from four years ago. I’m seeing a massive increase. Are you?’ And you’ll get five replies – it’s an instant, supportive, local-information sharing system. 

Working in a trust can provide a supportive network too. I don’t think I would have got through the pandemic, or some of my tricky staffing issues, if I hadn't been in a trust. Being a head teacher can be a lonely job and being part of a trust or part of a network, whether it’s something very informal or something very formal, is a protection against that loneliness.

Finding your supportive network of colleagues, whether that’s through a national organisation, a local one, informal or formal arrangement, would be one of the most crucial understandings that any new educational leader could have. 

Listen to the second part of our conversation, where Jo shares more of the leadership survival skills she has developed over her years of headship.