Leadership and Policy

Bouncing back from a poor school inspection

Some of the most challenging times in a headteacher’s career can be after a poor inspection outcome. Nick Bannister meets leaders who have helped their schools to bounce back after inspection setbacks

Team motivation: Hitting the ground running in September

Today, team motivation is seen as a key responsibility of modern headship, and it is especially important that as the new school year begins the whole-school team hits the ground running. Nick Bannister looks at the experiences of one primary headteacher

Getting the whole school singing

Becoming a ‘singing school’ can have a range of knock-on benefits. Penny Sheppard, headteacher of Queen’s Hill Primary, explains why and how she has embedded singing in every aspect of school life

Teaching on the Falkland Islands

Tom Hill has been head of a 260-pupil infant and junior school delivering the English curriculum for two years. Nothing unusual about that – other than its location. Emma Lee Potter caught up with him

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Priorities for September

What are your key priorities as you approach the end of the academic year, prepare for the summer break and start to think about September? Nick Bannister asks three headteachers for their ‘top five’ lists

Ensuring strong primary school governance

In the face of the many challenges embroiling education, David Hanson looks at why and how strong governance, and good working relationships with headteachers, can help schools to be successful

The hunt for LGBT equality

What can schools do to meet their legal requirements and ensure staff are treated equally, irrespective of sexuality. Legal expert Paul Maddock advises.

Ask Brenda – How do I engage parents?

I am a new head in my first headship at a small primary school and am finding it very hard to engage the parents with my new ideas for the school. What can I do to bring them with me? Or should I perhaps slow down the pace of change?

Ten steps to successful school fundraising

Squeezed budgets and government cuts have made life difficult for schools and placed a new importance on raising additional monies locally. Rachel Gordon offers 10 dos and don'ts for successful school fundraising and bid-writing

'I'll tell you what stress is…'

In a climate of austerity and constantly changing working conditions, stress is on the rise among teachers. Vanessa Latham looks at the legal position of teachers and schools when stress levels are running high

Raising the quality of teaching

Sharing your ‘butterfly’ practices, prioritising behaviour management and practising evidence-led CPD were listed as key to raising the quality teaching during a “Tweet-Up” debate featuring Sir TIm Brighouse and Professor Dylan Wiliam among other experts

Setting vs mixed ability

Sir Michael Wilshaw tells us that mixed-ability can harm the more able. Boris Johnson stands up in favour of grammar schools. Should our schools be more selective and put children back into sets? Suzanne O’Connell takes a look

‘The tyranny of stuff’

If your workload is becoming unmanageable it may be time to turn your back on some of the demands on your time – and give your team more responsibility. Nick Bannister on achieving work/life balance

Effective consultation with your parents

With recent changes to the Ofsted framework giving greater prominence to the views of key stakeholders, schools need to find new ways of gathering and responding to feedback. Dorothy Lepkowska reports

The rise and rise of business managers

The school business manager is an established part of the leadership of England’s secondary schools, but primaries are still some way behind. That’s now changing, as Nick Bannister discovers

Academy status – to be or not to be?

Whether or not to convert to an academy is one of the fundamental questions facing primary leaders across the country today. Nick Bannister speaks to three heads about the factors that made them go for, or reject, academy status

What does the Equality Act mean for schools?

The Equality Act 2010 replaced nine major pieces of legislation and should make it easier for school leaders and governors to understand their legal responsibilities and tackle inequalities in education. Bill Bolloten explains

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Forced conversion puts leaders under threat

As primary schools are being targeted for forced academy status, many headteachers are not being given the benefit of the doubt. Headteacher Update investigates the story behind the conversion statistics

Data protection – legal advice for schools

A survey of 1,000 schools has found that around half have inadequate policies on data protection and security. Expert Ros Foster looks at the challenges facing schools and the need for many to update their policies and practices on managing data

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Headteacher Update is a magazine, website, podcast and regular ebulletin dedicated to the primary school leadership team. We tackle a wide range of leadership issues, offering best practice, case studies and in-depth information, advice and guidance. Headteacher Update magazine is distributed free to approximately 20,000 primary school headteachers.

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