Our experts consider how to lead and manage these situations, sharing their tenets of effective leadership under pressure, their own experiences, and lessons learnt.
We ask how leaders stay calm, decisive, and people-centred when times are tough. We also look at the particular challenge of handling a negative Ofsted inspection outcome.
We consider specific examples of challenging circumstances and the different types of challenges we may face as a school leader, handling angry parents, a death in your school community, a local incident, a serious safeguarding issue, staffing problems, Ofsted and others.
We try to outline a general principles of handling these situations and discuss a step-by-step guide for how to respond.
We discuss in particular Ofsted – perhaps the most common “challenging circumstance” – and how leaders can handle a negative outcome and the challenge of turning a school around.
As ever, our host for this episode is Helen Frostick, a National Leader of Education and semi-retired primary school headteacher. Here guests are:
- Dr Kulvarn Atwal is the head learning leader at Highlands Primary School in Ilford and Uphall Primary School in Barking. He is the author of the books The Thinking Teacher and The Thinking School. Find him and his books @thinkingschool2
- Andrew O’Neill is headteacher at All Saints Catholic College in Kensington, London. He is Gold Award Winner in the Secondary Headteacher of the Year category in the Pearson Teaching Awards 2022. Find him @andrewoneillHT
You can listen to this episode of the Headteacher Update Podcast above. To hear other Headteacher Update podcasts, or to subscribe for free to new editions, search for 'The Headteacher Update Podcast' in your podcast streaming application of choice. Or visit www.headteacher-update.com/knowledge-bank/podcasts/
For details about The Headteacher Update Podcast, or to suggest future topics, email editor Pete Henshaw at pete.henshaw@markallengroup.com