References for Interim School Leaders: What to Ask and What to Give

A practical guide for proprietors, boards and the interim leaders they appoint

References for interim leaders are harder than references for permanent appointments, and schools frequently take a shortcut without meaning to.

The difficulty is structural. A permanent candidate has employers. An experienced interim has a run of placements, some short, some ended by design, with a proprietor or chair at each rather than a line manager. Many proprietors tell us they weren’t sure who to write to, so they accepted what the provider offered instead.

That’s the shortcut, and it’s the one that shows up in an audit. This guide sets out what’s required, who to ask, and what to actually ask them.

What is required?

References are part of safer recruitment and they aren’t optional because a placement is temporary.

You should obtain references directly from the referee rather than accepting anything provided by the candidate. That means an open testimonial, a letter handed over at interview, or a summary compiled by a provider does not meet the standard, however genuine it is.

You should ask about suitability to work with children, and about any disciplinary matters or concerns relating to safeguarding, subject to the usual position on how spent or unsubstantiated matters are handled.

You should verify that the referee is who they say they are, using contact details you’ve obtained independently rather than only those supplied by the candidate. This matters more in interim work than elsewhere, because the employment trail is less conventional.

And references should be received before the start date wherever possible. Where a genuine emergency makes that impossible, the position should be risk assessed and recorded rather than simply proceeding.

Who do you ask when the history is a series of placements?

Take references from the most recent placements, usually the last two or three, and be specific about who within each.

For an interim headteacher, the referee is the person who held them to account: the proprietor, the chair of the board or the chair of trustees. Not a member of their senior team, and not a fellow consultant. In an AP or specialist setting this is usually the proprietor or a director.

Where someone came through a provider, the provider is not the referee. They can help you identify the right person and they can confirm the placement dates. The reference itself comes from the school.

Two practical points. Gaps between placements are normal in interim work and shouldn’t be treated as suspicious, but they should be explored and the explanation recorded. And where a placement ended early, ask about it directly rather than working around it. Placements end early for many legitimate reasons, and the answer will tell you something either way.

What should you actually ask?

Written references tend to be cautious. The useful information usually comes from a follow up call, which you should record.

Beyond the standard suitability questions, six things are worth asking about interim work specifically.

What was the brief, and did they deliver it? The single most useful question. It tells you whether they can work to a defined objective rather than doing what interests them.

How did staff respond to them? An interim who couldn’t win a staff team’s confidence is a risk, however capable.

Did they tell you things you didn’t want to hear? A large part of an interim’s value to a board is honesty. Someone who gave comfortable reports for two terms didn’t do the job.

How did they handle safeguarding? Specifically, not generally. Did they check things themselves, including the single central record? Did anything come up and how did they deal with it?

What did they leave behind? Was there a proper handover, or did the knowledge leave with them?

Would you have them back? The question that produces the most honest answer, and the pause before the reply is often as informative as the reply.

How do you read a reference for interim work?

Differently from a permanent one, because the job is different.

A reference praising someone for building strong relationships over time is describing a permanent headteacher. An interim needs to establish credibility fast, be direct early, and leave. Warmth matters less than clarity here.

Be careful with references that emphasise how much the school missed them. That’s a compliment and it can also indicate a placement that created dependency rather than capability. The best interim work leaves a school more able to function without that person.

And weigh a difficult reference carefully. Interim leaders are sometimes appointed precisely to say uncomfortable things, and a chair who found that uncomfortable may give a lukewarm reference for exactly the reason you’d want to appoint them. Ask what the disagreement was about.

Giving a reference for an interim who has left you

You’ll be asked, and it’s worth being fair and honest at once.

Be accurate about dates, the role and the brief. Answer suitability questions honestly, including anything raised about safeguarding. Don’t inflate a reference to be kind, because the next school is relying on it and a child may be affected by your generosity.

Equally, don’t understate. If a placement was difficult because of the situation rather than the person, say so, and be clear which. An interim sent into a school with an impossible brief and no authority may have performed well in circumstances that looked like failure.

Where you have genuine concerns about suitability to work with children, those must be stated regardless of how the placement ended commercially. This is one area where safer recruitment obligations override any wish to part on good terms.

From our experience

The most common gap we find is a school that accepted a provider’s summary instead of taking its own references. It’s understandable, it’s quicker, and it doesn’t meet the standard.

Many proprietors tell us they didn’t realise the reference had to come from the school rather than the agency. Once they know, it’s a ten minute job, and it’s one of the easiest findings to avoid in a safeguarding audit.

The second pattern is not following up. A written reference that says the person was professional and reliable tells you nothing. One phone call asking what the brief was and whether they delivered it tells you almost everything, and it takes fifteen minutes.

Schools that appoint well always make the call, and they record it.

A common misconception

“Interim leaders move around so much that references don’t really tell you anything.”

It’s understandable to think that, because the pattern of short placements looks unstable when you’re used to reading permanent CVs. But it’s the wrong reading.

Short placements are the job, not a warning sign. What references tell you is whether this person delivers a brief, whether they’re honest with a board, and whether they leave a school stronger. Those are precisely the things you need to know, and they’re knowable from two phone calls.

The person you appoint will have unsupervised access to some of the most vulnerable children in the system and will make decisions about their safety from day one. That’s reason enough to make the calls properly.

Questions for proprietors and boards

• Did we take these references ourselves, or accept ones we were given?
• Did we go to the person who held the interim to account?
• Did we follow up in writing with a phone call, and did we record it?
• Did we ask about any placement that ended early?
• Is the whole process recorded on file, with dates?

Our perspective

References are one of the few parts of safer recruitment that tell you about judgement rather than about history, and for interim leadership that’s exactly what you need.

Take them yourself, from the right person, and follow up with a call that asks about the brief rather than the personality. Ask about anything that ended early. Record all of it.

Half an hour of phone calls gives you a far better read on whether this person can hold your school steady than any interview will, and it’s the strongest protection available for the children who’ll be relying on them from the first morning.