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Recruitment and retention

 
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School leaders are driven by an ambition to provide opportunities for young people to reach their full potential. To fulfil that ambition, teaching must attract and retain a high-quality, well-trained and properly rewarded workforce. 

Through our work with members, NAHT is documenting and communicating the unfolding recruitment and retention crisis taking place in our schools to policymakers at the highest levels. 

NAHT is campaigning to:

Ensure all schools can recruit and retain excellent teachers and leaders

  • Lobby for change and reform of key macro issues affecting recruitment and retention: pay, accountability, funding and workload and identify key actions to be taken to improve these
  • Press for the development of a range of flexible leadership and non-leadership pathways to support recruitment and retention, including new opportunities that will retain the experience and expertise of mid to late career leaders
  • Build on the opportunities offered by the Early Career Framework to press for similar support for new heads, deputies and assistants, and school business leaders
  • Maintain a watching brief on the impact of Brexit on teacher supply
  • Lobby the DfE for practical measures to address the workload of school leaders, including protection of strategic leadership time
  • Campaign for a staged real term, restorative pay award for teachers and school leaders
  • Develop a position on the role of CEOs and other posts outside the School Teachers’ Pay and Conditions Document (STPCD) including a position on which roles should have a requirement for Qualified Teacher Status (QTS)
  • Lobby for a review of the pay system, including the STPCD
  • Press government to maintain and enhance the teacher's pension scheme and/or Local Government Pension Scheme (LGPS)
  • Support work to ensure the profession represents a diverse workforce, including those with protected characteristics
  • Support effective partnerships between school leaders and governors with clarity of roles and responsibilities across different school structures.

Create a safe working environment for school leaders and their staff

  • Lobby the DfE to take concrete steps to tackle verbal and physical abuse and aggression against school staff, including harassment online and through social media.  

Ensure professional recognition of school business leaders (SBLs)

  • Lobby the DfE for SBLs to be included within a new national framework of terms and conditions for school staff
  • Promote the professional standards framework for all SBLs
  • Raise the profile and understanding of the SBL role across the school sector, including with governors.  

 

2020 Governance Handbook released

The Department for Education (DfE) has released a revised version of the governance handbook for 2020. The governance handbook sets out the roles, functions and legal duties of governing boards in maintained schools, academies and multi academy trusts. It also describes the main features of effective governance and where governing boards can find support.

Changes from the previous version (March 2019) include:

  • An increased emphasis on the board's role in safeguarding
  • An increased emphasis on the importance of risk assessments
  • An increased emphasis on the importance of the board reflecting the diversity of their community and promoting inclusivity, and new information on the appointment and removal of academy trustees and those on local governing bodies.
  • New information about academy trustees’ responsibilities for keeping members informed and new information on forthcoming requirement that members must not be employees of the trust.
  • Updated information on the importance of boards being supported by a skilled and knowledgeable clerk/governance professional.
  • Updated text on the head teachers' standards and role and responsibilities of head teachers to their board.

 

The governance handbook should be considered alongside the department's 'Competency Framework for Governance' and the 'Clerking Competency Framework', which describe the knowledge, skills and behaviours needed for effective governance and professional clerking.

First published 13 October 2020
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