head teacher

[sessy]

What extra qualifications does a teacher need to have in order to become a head teacher. The reason i ask this question my daughters head teacher left quite suddenly and a year 6 teacher then became acting head after a six month period it was then announced she had been appointed head is this normal practice in schools?

[Buenchico]

(2-part post):

Head teachers don't usually have any additional qualifications. All they have is additional skills, derived through experience.

Most teachers in primary schools have roles which aren't always obvious to parents. e.g. one teacher will probably have responsibility for developing mathematics throughout the school. Another might have responsibility for language and reading skills. Yet another teacher might be responsible for liaison with the local secondary schools. All but the smallest schools will have a teacher with the job title of 'deputy headteacher' (even though he or she might just seem to be an 'ordinary' class teacher to parents and pupils). If the headteacher becomes suddenly unavailable, it's perfectly normal for that teacher to move up to take over the head's role until consideration can be given to finding a permanent replacement.

[Buenchico]

The teaching unions prefer that the vacancy for a senior teaching post should be advertised but this sometimes conflicts with 'common sense'. I once attended an interview for a head of department job, in a secondary school, where the second in department had been doing the job for nearly a year, following his boss's heart attack. As soon as I arrived, I was told that the headteacher and governors were extremely satisfied with the performance of the acting head of department and that he was almost certain to get the job. I, and the other three external candidates, were simply there to make up the numbers, in order to meet the requirement that the post be advertised. That meant that four schools had been forced to employ supply staff (to cover for us candidates who were away from our classrooms) and the local authority, for the employing school, had been forced to pay four lots of travelling expenses and four hotel bills. (We'd all travelled hundreds of miles for the totally pointless 'interviews').

So it makes far more sense, if the governors are satisfied with the performance of the acting postholder, to simply give them the permanent job (rather than going through the time-wasting and costly procedure of inviting external applications).

Chris