Who Runs the School if the Headteacher Is Suspended?

A practical guide for proprietors, boards and trustees

This is one of the hardest days a proprietor will have, and it usually arrives with almost no notice. A decision is taken, sometimes on advice, sometimes because there’s no alternative, and by that afternoon the school needs someone else in charge.

It’s understandable that boards feel out of their depth. Suspension is a neutral act, not a finding, and holding that line publicly while also making sure the school is properly led is genuinely difficult. Many proprietors tell us the first forty eight hours were the part they’d handle differently.

This guide sets out what has to happen immediately, what you can and can’t say, and why the obvious internal answer is often the wrong one here.

Who takes charge when a headteacher is suspended?

Somebody must be formally named, in writing, on the first day. Not “the senior team will manage between them.”

That person can be an acting headteacher from within, an interim headteacher from outside, or a named senior leader operating with written delegated authority from the proprietor. What matters is that one person holds it, every member of staff knows who, and the scope of their authority is written down.

Alongside that, three things need settling the same day.

Safeguarding. If the suspended head was the designated safeguarding lead, name a replacement immediately and tell all staff. A deputy DSL stepping up needs current designated safeguarding lead training and needs to know they’re now the person, not the second name on a poster. Check what’s open and make sure nothing is sitting in a suspended leader’s inbox.

Access. Systems, email, safeguarding records, MIS, building access and keys. This needs handling calmly and in line with your policy and any advice you’ve taken, but it does need handling on day one.

Delegated authority. What the person now leading can decide alone, in figures. Spending, staffing, admissions, communication with commissioners. Without this the school stalls within days.

What can you tell staff and parents?

Less than they want, more than nothing.

Suspension is a neutral act. It’s not a disciplinary sanction and it’s not a finding of any kind. Saying anything that implies otherwise is unfair to the individual and creates real legal exposure for you.

A workable form of words says only what people need to operate: the headteacher is absent, this named person is leading the school, this is who to go to for what, and we’ll update you when there’s something to update you on. Take advice on the exact wording, particularly where an allegation involving a child is in play, because there may be reporting restrictions and there’ll certainly be a process to follow with your local authority designated officer.

What we’d caution against is silence. Staff will know something has happened within hours. A vacuum gets filled with speculation, and speculation is far more damaging to the individual and to the school than a short factual statement.

Placing authorities should hear from you directly rather than through a parent. You don’t need to give them detail. You do need to tell them the school is properly led.

Why internal cover is often the wrong answer here

In most leadership absences, asking a capable deputy to step up is sensible. Suspension is the situation where it most often isn’t, and it’s worth understanding why before you default to it.

The deputy has worked closely with the suspended head, quite possibly for years. They may be a witness in the process. They may be asked questions they shouldn’t be answering. They almost certainly have a view, and whatever it is, it puts them in an impossible position with colleagues who have the opposite one.

There’s also the question of what happens afterwards. If the head returns, the deputy has to hand back and resume a relationship that’s been altered. If they don’t return, the deputy has been auditioning without being told they were.

None of that applies to someone brought in from outside. They didn’t work under the suspended head, they aren’t a potential witness, and they won’t be in the building whichever way it goes. In our experience that counts for a great deal, both to the school and to the fairness of the process.

There’s a governance point too. Where an investigation may touch on how the school has been run, having an independent leader in post, and in some cases an external review of governance alongside it, is a much stronger position than having the previous head’s closest colleague making the decisions.

Plan for both outcomes

The head may return. The head may not. Boards that plan for only one of those get caught out.

If they return, you need an arrangement that can be unwound cleanly. That means the interim’s changes should be documented and explainable, staff should understand the arrangement is temporary, and no permanent commitments should be made that would embarrass a returning leader.

If they don’t, you need to be able to move to permanent recruitment without a gap. Headship recruitment in a specialist setting takes two terms, so the moment the outcome is known you want to be ready rather than starting to think about it.

Either way, don’t let the interim arrangement drift while a process runs on. Investigations take longer than anyone expects. Set review points and hold them.

What about the children?

It’s easy for this to become entirely about process, and the thing that matters most is what pupils experience.

Children in specialist settings notice adults disappearing, and many of them have particular reasons to find that unsettling. They don’t need the detail and they mustn’t be given it. They do need the adults around them to be calm, present and consistent, and they need to know who’s in charge.

Keep routines intact wherever you can. Ask staff to be steady rather than to pretend nothing has happened, because children generally see through the second one. And make sure the pastoral team has capacity, because they’ll be absorbing a lot of low level anxiety for a few weeks.

From our experience

The proprietors who handle this well move quickly on the practical things and slowly on everything else. Named leader, safeguarding cover, access, delegated authority, short factual statement, all on day one. Then no further announcements until there’s something real to say.

The most common mistake we see is a deputy asked to hold everything with no written authority, no additional support and no end point, while the board focuses entirely on the process. Six weeks later the deputy is exhausted, the school has drifted and the investigation is nowhere near finished.

The second is saying too much too early. A board under pressure from staff gives more detail than it should, and that detail turns up later in a way nobody wanted. Many leaders tell us they wished they’d taken advice before the first staff meeting rather than after it.

A common misconception

“We shouldn’t bring anyone in until we know the outcome.”

It’s an understandable instinct, because appointing someone feels like it prejudges the situation. It doesn’t. An interim leader is cover for an absence, exactly as they would be for illness, and appointing one says nothing at all about the process.

What does cause harm is a school left without properly held leadership for a term while an investigation runs. The pupils, the staff and ultimately the suspended individual are all better served by a school that continues to be run properly in the meantime.

Questions for proprietors and boards

• Is the person leading this school named in writing, and does every member of staff know?
• Who holds safeguarding today, and have they been told they now hold it?
• What can that person decide without coming to us, in figures?
• Have we taken advice before speaking to staff?
• Are we planning for both outcomes, or only the one we expect?

Our perspective

A suspension is a process question and a leadership question at the same time, and boards understandably give most of their attention to the first.

The schools that come through this well are the ones that separated the two. They let the process take the time it takes, properly advised, and they made sure the school was genuinely led throughout by someone with clear authority and nothing riding on how the process ended.

That protects the fairness of the process, it protects the staff, and it means the children in the school carry on getting the education they were promised while the adults sort out something that was never theirs to worry about.