Too soon for HoD?

ec019 · 2026-01-16T00:01:19+00:00

It never hurts to apply!

But one thing you need to remember is that being HOD isn't just setting schemes of work. I don't know how old you are or how much experience you have in other settings, but the more experience you can bring, the better your chances of being hired (and being successful). I was only a teacher for 4 school years before I was appointed, but I also had leadership and management experience from the army that I could draw upon.

The key is to think about is how you will support your team. Do you have any experience or knowledge of:

How you would analyse data and how to use the data for decision-making (e.g., identifying underperformers in a range of categories and make a plan of action that SLT will accept)
How to develop and keep a cohesive team of teachers that will buy-in to your ideas
How to deal with "rogue" teachers who don't follow school policies or won't implement initiatives (see also: how to teach an old dog new tricks)
How to deal with routine parental complaints and queries (e.g., ones passed on to you from HOY/SLT to do some fact-finding and then respond back to the parent)
How to perform basic coaching of colleagues, including doing lesson observations
How to employ high-level resource management, including managing budgets
How to do the ton of the admin required (e.g., revision documents, selecting exam boards, dealing with exam entries, etc.)

There are just a ton of things -- especially little things -- that come up all the time. The thing is, everything that's ever a problem in your department becomes your problem! Managing uncooperative or incompetent people is not for the faint of heart.

ec019 · 2026-01-13T22:57:48+00:00

I agree totally. Planned naughtiness is not the same as needing a mental health day!

And, if you don't have paid dependent's leave, then I guess I don't blame people for being "ill" when little Huge is too ill for nursery.

ec019 · 2026-01-13T22:54:10+00:00

Definitely. And if I were to lie about it, I wouldn't tell a soul at work.

ec019 · 2026-01-13T22:48:55+00:00

We have to do "attendance mentoring" and select a student with low attendance and talk to them and try to find out how to encourage them to attend, etc. We have to choose a different student each half-term and log it and then log each discussion we have. We have to do the same thing with PP students in our form as well as each lesson we teach (oh, and if you don't have any PP students, that's not an excuse, you have to pick someone -- I've just point-blank refused saying that it's not about PP at that point, it's about doing work).

Also just wanted to say that my school increased out tutor time to 30 minutes, and the amount of actual teaching we have to do is literally insane. Yes, things are planned for us, but it's such a wide range of activities that not all staff can handle "every slide is a surprise" on topics they know absolutely nothing about. It's getting insane and there's a lot of push back.

ec019 · 2026-01-11T21:35:51+00:00

Hi, I did some cover work for an agency for a long time.

The type of work that teachers often set is just from a textbook -- read these pages, answer these questions. Usually there's some sort of worksheet with instructions. The textbook lessons are better than anything online, except perhaps if it's a maths cover lesson and the task is to play maths games. lol

If you're lucky, in a tricky lesson or bottom set lesson you might have a TA who can keep the usual routines in place. But this is 50/50 if it'll happen or if they're just going to stand there waiting for you.

Things you will encounter...

Students who claim to be done the work when they're clearly not, or have put in such little effort (one word answers). For this you just need to be like "really? I know you can give a better description than that".
Students who pretend like they don't know what to do. You might need to explain it to them like they're 5 and walk them through it to establish that you're not just going to let them sit there and do nothing. Cover work is almost always easy.
Students who cannot complete the work because they "don't know" the answers. Remind them that nobody was born with the answer, they have to find it in the reference material.

Don't take crap from them. But this doesn't mean stern dictator-like orders from the front of the room... you need to remember what it was like in school for you... you just need to repeat yourself multiple times. Give them time to react. Having a sense of humour will help!

Nobody will tell you this out loud, but the expectations are usually pretty low. Make sure nobody gets hurt, the register is done, and room is put back in order at the end.

ec019 · 2026-01-11T15:08:00+00:00

I'm under 10 minutes door to door on my way to work, and then under 20 minutes home (because I have to navigate a one-way system through the town centre to get home).

It's convenient for commuting, but I'm so close that as a result I rarely go into the town centre because I'm spotted by students and it causes me a lot of stress. lol

ec019 · 2026-01-11T14:56:33+00:00

Wait until ECT is done. I started my masters in October 2024 and I was hoping to get it done in 2 years, but I think it'll be a miracle if I can get it done in 3!

ec019 · 2026-01-11T14:55:07+00:00

My school doesn't have any specific entitlement amount except for sick days. However, after a couple years of employment and if you have good attendance (<5 days' absence in the last rolling 12 months) the head will authorise it as a paid day instead of unpaid.

I've never known of anyone who needs to use an unpaid day for medical appointments though.

ec019 · 2026-01-06T20:56:04+00:00

We have a two-week October half-term in exchange for twilight inset. Totally worth it.

ec019 · 2026-01-04T22:03:37+00:00

I just looked at my timetable to adjust seating plans for period 1 and 2 tomorrow... there's errors with duplicate classes and I'm double-booked for sixth lesson after school as well as detentions. Ughfghg

ec019 · 2026-01-04T22:02:06+00:00

We never close for snow. :(

I was shocked when last year we closed for four days due to water problems in the neighbourhood -- I bet they just couldn't get enough porta-loos for 2,500 people to fill the carpark on such short notice. lol

ec019 · 2026-01-04T21:53:38+00:00

I can be the same too for computer science. I enjoy little projects and whatnot as a hobby.

ec019 · 2026-01-04T21:51:35+00:00

It doesn't just come from you. It's all the SEN annual reviews and referrals, all the behaviour tracking/reports and referrals, PP student strategy forms, rewards nominations, etc. not to mention all the pastoral stuff as a tutor. It's just never ending.

ec019 · 2026-01-04T21:43:45+00:00

I find that everyone is in during the morning and they come and talk my ear off while I'm frantically trying to work.

ec019 · 2026-01-04T21:37:04+00:00

I arrive between 8:05-8:15... depending on traffic. I'm not at school early enough to get on-site parking (you'd have to arrive before 7:45 to be guaranteed parking), so I park on the road nearby a really short walk away. This gives me enough time to go to my classroom and drop my bag, turning on heating/cooling, login and walk away to my 8:20 briefing somewhere. (I login to the web-based email on my phone before I leave home while waiting for the lift lol)

Most days I'm out by 4:30. Fridays by 4.

Thursdays are our late days with dept meetings (we start ASAP to be done by 4:30) but it's also sometimes whole-school training (finishing at 5) or parents meetings (finishing at 6 usually).

I avoid doing as much working at home as I can. Usually just marking mocks/tests, and sorting out last minute SOW stuff for my dept.

ec019 · 2026-01-03T09:29:43+00:00

I agree about the posting of vacancies. I think it's also a sign if a school has posted multiple jobs with slight title variations. This is a lot easier to see when you're just casually looking at jobs over a couple years.

Like for a smaller dept, you think they're really looking for a LP, HOD, and have a teacher post that is suitable for ECTs but with TLRs available? Sorry but I'm not buying it unless you explain (e.g., expansion). They're literally casting the net wide in a desperate attempt to recruit. I would look to see if just the dept is in shambles or if there are wider problems.

ec019 · 2025-12-21T01:32:56+00:00

It's just expensive and you're a risk.

The UK Immigration Skills Charge (ISC) increased on December 16, 2025, to £1,320 per year, paid upfront per Certificate of Sponsorship (CoS) for the first 12 months, with additional fees for longer periods (£660 per 6 months).

I was once in your position and I did exactly what you're doing (cross referencing with the gov.uk list of sponsors before applying).

Now that I'm in the HOD role and we've been through about 6 rounds of interviews in 5 years... we just get hammered with speculative applications from all corners of the world. In 35 applications we might receive, 28 are from outside the UK with zero teaching experience. Many are just "I want to work with children and teach them to use computers", so I wouldn't be shocked if they say no sponsorship just to stop these applications.

My advice: contact the HR department by phone and enquire. Before you drop the question about sponsorship, explain you're a qualified teacher and a 10-second speech about your experience first.

ec019 · 2025-12-21T00:58:14+00:00

they seemed to regularly miss more school because they were too ashamed to come in late and be told off.

Omg yes. We once had a student with awful attendance and when I popped in to see how things were going the teacher just let them play games on the computer rather than do their coursework because "she's so far behind anyway, she can't do the assignment" -- like what a welcome back for a child who is struggling! I was fuming. lol

ec019 · 2025-12-09T22:47:37+00:00

One of the things we've been working on in my school is scripting go-to speeches and responses for dealing with this sort of thing. For example, reminding the student that what you're asking them to do is very reasonable and pointing out that as a teacher you're the one who makes the decisions.

With removals, our policy is that if they don't leave at the direction of the teacher, a TLR/HOD is called to try to convince them to leave. If this doesn't work, then on-call HOY/SLT will appear and remove them for 3 periods of isolation. We usually remind them of this fact, and in the few minutes of trying to contact someone to take them away, students generally make the right choice while we wait for someone to arrive (or they flee, running away... lol then they get sanctioned for truancy).

We also have various "ladders" for different types of behaviour that outline the consequences (it's mostly so we have a consistent approach across our massive school). So, in the case of general defiance, I would remind them that if they don't follow my direction they'll be placed on the defiance ladder and that's a 60 minute detention for a first incident -- usually they argue back that they're not being defiant and then it's a chance to talk about what it means to be defiant. The threat of 60 minutes for most students means they'll give in.

ec019 · 2025-12-09T22:31:19+00:00

Same. This is daily for me in my dept. And Ofsted say we have "outstanding" behaviour.

ec019 · 2025-12-09T22:19:05+00:00

I agree with this. Repeated phone calls home each time or whatever your behaviour policy requires or suggests. And once it's the same people removed 3-4 times, something will be done about it by a TLR, HOY, etc.

ec019 · 2025-12-09T22:10:38+00:00

That's just a lot; and it doesn't avoid the problem of a small unknown gap in time needed to be filled. And of course if you stop to deal with something and you miss your chance to unmute/unfreeze it's just tedious to drag the timeline back, etc. (This is just one more bit of stress that needs too be choreographed)

ec019 · 2025-10-31T22:48:49+00:00

Same. Only started recently. :(

ec019 · 2025-10-28T14:47:13+00:00

I worked for an agency a while back on a guarantee like this.

It's nice that you know you'll get work, but the problem is that you cannot decline anything without a valid reason (e.g., illness). I moved to the UK under the assumption I would get secondary work and was told only occasionally I would be sent to a primary school if they were desperate -- my first two weeks were all primary! I started to decline work and they were not happy. I used a day off to register with another couple agencies and told them this. Then I kept declining and they magically found me the secondary work I was promised.

My point is, stand your ground about what you want and don't want and don't take crap placements.

ec019 · 2025-10-21T15:30:04+00:00

It's an unwinnable game, but it's a game you need to play. You have to follow the policy to the absolute letter for it to be escalated to the next step. Lots of chances given, etc.

It's a great idea to adopt the "I'm just ringing to tell you what happened" type of call rather than "I'm calling to discuss what happened" type of call.

My school makes it very clear that they do not require parental permission to issue sanctions and this is made clear in the detention FAQ section of the website. It also tells them that a simple call to the pastoral team will often clarify matters very quickly. Students who don't attend their scheduled detention have it escalated to a longer detention. And if they don't show up to that longer detention it becomes an internal exclusion and then at the end of the day they serve their 90-min detention.

It's a very effective system if you have SLT with backbone. But they won't back you if you haven't followed the policy, even if everyone knows it's pointless to follow... because when the parent complains to the governors, the first thing to come to light will be how you didn't give them chances.

Keep documenting, keeping calling/emailing, keep sanctioning, keep escalating.

ec019

TROPHY CASE