How to Become an Interim Headteacher in a Special School

A practical guide for experienced leaders considering interim work

Most people who move into interim headship didn’t plan it. A placement came up through someone they knew, they did it well, and a second one followed. There’s no established route, no qualification and very little written about how it actually works.

Many leaders tell us they’d been thinking about it for two years before they mentioned it to anyone, unsure whether they were the sort of person who did this. It’s understandable, because the market is genuinely opaque from the outside.

This is an honest account of who does it well, what schools are actually looking for, and how first placements happen.

Who does interim headship well?

Not necessarily the strongest headteachers. It’s a different job and it suits different people.

The leaders who do this well tend to share five things.

They can arrive without disrupting. The instinct to demonstrate value in week one is the most common failure. Good interims spend their first fortnight listening, and that’s a temperament rather than a technique.

They’re comfortable being disliked. A large part of the value is telling a board something the previous leader couldn’t. Someone who needs to be liked will give a school a comfortable term and not much else.

They can work without belonging. You won’t be part of the staff team, you won’t be there for the outcomes, and the relationships end when the placement does. Some experienced heads find that genuinely difficult.

They finish things. An interim who leaves a school with a proper handover and systems that hold without them has done the job. One who leaves a school dependent on them hasn’t.

They tolerate uncertainty. No guaranteed income, gaps between placements, and situations you won’t fully understand for three weeks.

What are schools actually looking for?

Less than you’d think about qualifications and more than you’d expect about specific setting experience.

In independent special schools and alternative provision, boards want someone who has led that kind of setting. Not a similar sized school. The same type. Residential, complex needs, AP, specialist college and independent special are genuinely different jobs, and a proprietor who has been let down once by a strong mainstream leader will be specific the second time.

Beyond that, four things.

Experience of leading in difficulty. Interim placements almost always involve something being wrong. A career spent in stable, well resourced schools is less useful here than it sounds.

Safeguarding depth. You’ll be expected to look at the safeguarding position yourself in week one and form a view. That means genuine confidence with safeguarding practice, not just having held the role.

Regulatory knowledge. The Independent School Standards, registration, the current Ofsted framework, and how commissioning works. Boards ask about this and they can tell within a minute.

Clean, complete compliance. DBS, prohibition checks, training certificates, references, all current and producible in an afternoon. It sounds administrative and it’s frequently what decides who gets called first.

How do first placements happen?

Almost never through an advert. The honest answer is that most interim work comes through three routes.

People who already know your work. Former colleagues, proprietors you’ve met, consultants and inspectors you’ve worked alongside. This is the largest source by a distance, and it means telling people you’re available is the single most effective thing you can do.

Providers. Consultancies and agencies that place interim leaders. Get on their books properly, with your full compliance file, before you need work. A provider with a school needing someone next week will call the person whose paperwork is already sitting complete.

Sector visibility. Being known in specialist education. Speaking, writing, being active in the professional networks where proprietors and directors are.

The practical implication is that the year before your first placement matters more than the application. Get your file complete, get on two or three providers’ books, and tell twenty people you’re available.

What is the work actually like?

Harder than headship in some ways and easier in others, and worth being realistic about both.

Harder: you arrive knowing nothing and are expected to form judgements quickly. You inherit problems you didn’t create. You have less authority than a substantive head in practice, whatever the contract says, because staff know you’re leaving. And you frequently work in schools that are struggling, which is tiring.

Easier: the brief is defined. You aren’t carrying a five year vision. You can name a problem without first weighing up how you’ll work with that person next year. And you leave, which means you don’t carry the school home with you the way substantive headship does.

The pattern of the work is also different. A placement typically runs one to three terms, then there’s a gap, then another. That rhythm suits some people and unsettles others.

The practical side

Take advice before your first placement rather than after.

Decide how you’ll be engaged: through a provider on PAYE, through your own limited company, or on a fixed term contract. Each has different tax, pension and administrative consequences, and the off-payroll working position needs proper advice for your circumstances rather than a rule of thumb.

Get professional indemnity and public liability insurance at a level appropriate to headship in specialist settings. Leading a school carries more exposure than most consultancy work.

Think about your pension, particularly if you’re leaving a scheme you’ve been in for twenty years. This is the thing experienced heads most often regret not looking at first.

And plan for gaps. Most interims have periods without work, especially early on.

From our experience

The leaders who struggle in their first placement are usually the ones who tried to be the headteacher they were before.

A strong substantive head arrives, applies the approach that worked at their last school, and finds the staff resistant. The approach wasn’t wrong. It just needed a leader who was staying, and that’s a genuinely difficult adjustment.

Many leaders tell us the moment it clicked was realising the job wasn’t to make the school theirs. It was to hold it steady, name what was wrong, and hand it over better than they found it.

The other thing we see often is people underselling their setting experience. A leader who has run an AP for six years will describe themselves as an experienced headteacher when the specific thing a proprietor needs is somebody who has run an AP. Be specific.

A common misconception

“Interim work is what you do at the end of your career.”

Plenty of interims are experienced leaders in their fifties and sixties, and it isn’t a retirement option.

The work is demanding. You’re dropped into schools with real problems, expected to form accurate judgements quickly, and asked to make decisions with consequences from your first morning. Some of the strongest interims we work with are in their forties and chose this deliberately because they prefer the variety and the defined briefs.

It’s also work that matters. The children in a school that has just lost its head need somebody capable in the building on Monday. Doing that well, repeatedly, across settings that need it, is a serious contribution to specialist education rather than a gentle wind-down.

Questions for leaders considering interim work

• Can I arrive somewhere and spend a fortnight listening without needing to prove myself?
• Am I willing to tell a proprietor something they don’t want to hear in week three?
• Which setting types can I genuinely lead, and which am I stretching on?
• Is my compliance file complete and producible today?
• Have I taken advice on tax, insurance and pension before starting?

Our perspective

Interim leadership in specialist settings is undersupplied, and experienced leaders who understand this work are genuinely needed.

If you’re considering it, do the unglamorous preparation first. Get the compliance file complete. Register properly with providers who work in your kind of setting. Take advice on the practical side. Be specific about what you can lead. And tell people you’re available, because that’s how most first placements happen.

Then go in prepared to listen for a fortnight and to be honest in week three. That combination is what schools actually need, and it’s what makes the difference for the children in a setting that has just lost its leader.