How to Introduce an Interim Headteacher to Staff and Parents

A practical guide for proprietors, boards and trustees

The announcement is a small piece of work that shapes the whole placement. Get it right and an interim arrives with a school that’s ready to work with them. Get it wrong and they spend a month correcting an impression that was formed in the first hour.

Many proprietors tell us they wrote the parent letter carefully and told the staff in a hurry, which is the wrong way round. Staff are the people who’ll make the placement work, and they’re usually the ones who find out last and least well.

Get the order right

Five audiences, in this sequence, ideally within twenty four hours.

The senior team, first and individually. They need to hear it before their colleagues and they need a chance to ask questions privately. A deputy who learns about an external appointment in a staff briefing is starting from a difficult place.

All staff, in person. Not an email. A short meeting where the proprietor or chair says what’s happening and why, and where people can put their hands up.

Placing authorities and commissioners, the same day. A phone call, not a letter. They watch leadership stability closely and hearing it from a parent is considerably worse than hearing it from you.

Parents and carers. A short written note, sent before the news reaches them from a child or another parent.

Pupils. At whatever level fits your cohort, and don’t skip it. Children in specialist settings notice adults arriving and leaving, and many have particular reasons to find it unsettling.

The order matters because information travels fast in a small school. Anyone who finds out third hand concludes they weren’t important enough to tell.

What should you say to staff?

Six things, and none of them take long.

Who the interim is and what they’ve done. Setting experience in schools like yours specifically, because that’s what earns credibility with a specialist staff team.

When they start and roughly how long for. Uncertainty is exhausting to work under and an honest “we expect two or three terms” beats a vague answer.

What they’re here to do. Two or three things from the brief, in plain terms. Staff work better when they know what the priorities are.

What isn’t changing. Frequently more reassuring than what is. Say if the senior team structure stays, if the therapeutic model stays, if their line manager stays, if the safeguarding arrangements stay.

Who to go to for what, during the transition and afterwards.

And something honest about the situation. If the last few months have been difficult, acknowledge it. Staff know, and a proprietor pretending otherwise loses credibility they’ll need.

What should you say to parents and carers?

Short and factual. Half a page is plenty.

Who’s leading the school, when they start, that they’re experienced in this kind of setting, who to contact about their child, and that you’ll update them again at a set point.

Two things to be careful about. Don’t overpromise stability you can’t guarantee, because if the arrangement changes you’ll have spent credibility you needed. And don’t say anything about the departing head beyond a neutral acknowledgement, whatever the circumstances.

Families in specialist settings have often fought hard for the placement and are more sensitive to leadership change than parents elsewhere. A note that’s honest and calm does more than one that’s reassuring and vague.

Offer a way to raise concerns. Some parents will want a conversation, and it’s better to invite it than to have it arrive as a complaint.

What should you say to placing authorities?

More than you’d tell parents, and directly.

Who’s leading, their relevant experience, what the arrangement is, and your timeline for the permanent appointment. Then who their contact is for placements and for individual children.

Commissioners’ real question is whether placements remain safe and well led. Answer it before they ask. A proprietor who phones proactively holds referrals considerably better than one who waits.

Then keep the contact going, rather than making one call and going quiet for a term.

What should the interim do in their first week?

Be present and say very little.

The most effective first weeks we see involve an interim who’s visible, in classrooms, at the gate, eating where staff eat, and who spends their time asking questions rather than announcing plans.

They should meet the senior team individually and every member of staff at least briefly. They should be introduced to pupils in whatever way suits your cohort. And they should say honestly, once, that they’re temporary, that they’re here to do two or three specific things, and that they’ll be straight with people.

What they shouldn’t do is give a vision speech in week one. A staff team that’s just lost its head is not ready to hear about direction, and a leader who arrives with a plan before they know the school will lose credibility when the plan turns out to be wrong.

What to avoid

Four things.

Announcing by email. It reads as a board that didn’t want to face the questions.

Overselling. “We’re delighted to have secured an outstanding leader who will transform the school.” Staff will judge that against week three.

Criticising the departed head, or letting the interim do it. However justified. Some staff liked them, and it tells everyone how leaders here talk about people who aren’t in the room.

Leaving the length open. “For the time being” is the phrase that most unsettles a staff team. Give a range even if it’s approximate.

From our experience

The announcements that land well are the ones where the proprietor was honest about the difficulty rather than presenting the appointment as good news.

We often see a board announce an interim with real enthusiasm to a staff team that’s exhausted and wary, and the mismatch is noticed immediately. Acknowledging that it’s been a hard term costs nothing and buys a great deal.

Many leaders tell us the moment staff started trusting them was when they said, in the first week, that they didn’t yet know enough to make judgements and would spend a fortnight finding out. That’s the opposite of what boards often expect an interim to say, and it works.

The other pattern is commissioners hearing second hand. A placing authority that finds out from a social worker will start asking questions you’d rather they didn’t. One phone call prevents it.

A common misconception

“We should keep the message positive so nobody worries.”

It’s an entirely understandable instinct, particularly when a board is trying to protect a school that’s had a difficult period.

The difficulty is that staff and parents already know something has happened. A determinedly positive message with no acknowledgement of the situation reads as evasion, and it tells people they won’t get straight answers from this board.

Honest and calm is more reassuring than positive and vague. “The last few months have been difficult, here’s who’s leading now, here’s what they’re here to do, here’s what isn’t changing” gives people something to work with.

The children in the school pick up the emotional temperature of the adults around them faster than anyone expects. Adults who are calm because they’ve been told the truth are the best thing you can give them.

Questions for proprietors and boards

• Have we told our senior team individually, before anyone else?
• Are we telling staff in person, with time for questions?
• Has someone phoned our main placing authorities today?
• Have we said what isn’t changing, not just what is?
• Have we given a realistic length rather than “for the time being”?

Our perspective

An announcement takes an afternoon to plan and it sets the tone for a whole placement.

Get the order right. Tell staff in person and be honest about the situation. Phone your commissioners the same day. Keep the parent letter short and factual. Tell the pupils in a way that suits them. And ask your interim to spend their first week listening rather than announcing.

Do that and the interim starts with a school that’s ready to work with them, which is what the children and young people in it need from a period they didn’t choose.