Recruitment and retention toolkit

Last updated: 04 September 2024

Recruitment and retention toolkit -Overview

We are pleased to confirm that the web-based Recruitment and Retention Toolkit for schools has been reviewed. The toolkit contains a range of guidance and links to help you attract, select and retain the most talented applicants.

Please get in touch with us if you need any support with recruitment and retention.

You can contact us by email advertising@buckinghamshire.gov.uk or phone 01296 382233.

National standards

There are also some national standards to consider:

Employment law relating to recruitment & selection
Department for Education – Teachers Standards
NCSL & NGA – Guide for recruitment & selection of a new Headteacher
Department for Education – National Standards for excellence for Headteachers
Department for Education – National Standards for supporting teaching learning

The Toolkit

The recruitment & retention toolkit is divided into four main sections:

1. Recruitment

can you avoid recruiting?
defining your recruitment needs
attracting candidates

2. Selection

shortlisting
selection tools
competency based interviews
evaluating assessment evidence

3. Offer, on-boarding and induction

making the conditional offer
on-boarding
induction
recruitment review

4. Retention

Retention/Attraction strategies
Planning ahead
Succession planning guidance

Planning ahead

Can you avoid recruiting?

There are a number of things to consider before deciding if you need to recruit which may help you to avoid having to recruit or enable you to do it in a more planned way.

All roles

Plan ahead – do you have a succession plan for the school? This should identify training and development opportunities for staff and could also help to identify acting up arrangements for both planned absences and unplanned ones. This may help with retention if Teachers can see a planned career path and development. Please see the retention section of this toolkit for guidance on succession planning.

Do you have any part-time members of staff doing the same/similar role who would be willing to increase their hours of work? You could offer this opportunity to your existing workforce to save the need to recruit an additional person.

Consider advertising the role on a secondment basis to staff from other schools. A secondment could be for half a day per week for a half-term or full-time for an academic year. The member of staff would remain on the payroll of their current school and you would reimburse their school for their pay. This arrangement is beneficial to staff as it enables them to gain valuable experience and CPD in another setting, without having to leave their current role. It’s beneficial to the releasing school as they could look to backfill the role at a lower cost using an Early Careers Teachers (ECT) or unqualified teacher. It is beneficial to the recruiting school as they don’t need to go through all the pre-employment checks for the secondee. We’ve produced some guidance on how this might work.

View secondments guidance

See attached guidance on job share.

Points to consider when preparing a school job share policy
Points to consider when designing a specific Job Share
Interview questions specifically related to a Job Share partnership

Headteacher roles

Plan ahead – Headteachers aged 55+ can opt for phased retirement, allowing a Deputy to act up on the Heads non-working days. This provides the Deputy with some good experience and development while maintaining stability.

Could your school share a Head with another school? Is there another/other local schools that you could work with to share one Head? This could save you a considerable amount of money in terms of salary – even if you needed to put in an additional Deputy/Assistant.

Is your school looking to form a federation/become part of an academy trust – if so is this the time to put in place a temporary Head while this process is explored/completed. Again this could save you a considerable amount of money.

If you have a strong team of Deputy/Assistant Heads – could you consider a rota whereby each person takes it in turn to act as Head for a term/school year? This would again generate considerable savings and could provide an opportunity for another member of staff to act-up to the Deputy/Assistant role and therefore gain development and experience.

Can any of the duties of the Head be assigned to a different member of staff (existing or new), which may mean you can consider a part-time candidate? This would provide salary savings and may open up a wider pool of candidates for your role. It’s extremely rare that we see part-time Head vacancies and this may be very attractive for some applicants, hopefully generating a good response.

Teaching roles

Have you joined a Teaching School Group? This can be a very good way of ensuring a good flow of candidates and there’s lots of evidence that Trainee Teachers want to work in schools where they’ve done a placement.

Consider advertising a role as a part-time or job share opportunity, this may attract a wider group of applicants than full-time roles.

Can you put an LSA into every Maths/Science class to support the Teacher? This may be a selling point to candidates as it shows there is extra support for them in your school.

Do you have any Higher LSAs who can take a class to either give the Teacher time to spend with a group within the class or more time for PPA on a regular basis?

Can you work with local businesses and/or volunteers to have regular visitors to spend time within the class/with groups to help support the Teacher? This may have the added benefit of providing additional support for work experience placements and careers events. Remember DBS checks.

Learning Support Assistant roles

Consider liaising with local apprenticeship providers such as SEAC, Aylesbury College, ATG Training, E4S and Amersham College. Apprentices can be very successful and can offer a good flow of permanent candidates.

Building relationships with local colleges who offer Childcare training/qualifications may help raise your profile as a local recruiter of child related roles. You can also offer work experience to these colleges and/offer to do a brief talk to a group of students.

Build relationships with local secondary school 6^th forms – many of them require their 6^th form students to carry out community work and supporting children in a primary school on a regular basis would benefit the students and you and also provide a channel for future recruitment.

Consider advertising the role on a more part-time basis – such as 1 LSA who covers the mornings and another one who covers the afternoons or 2 who cover 2.5 days per week. These may be more attractive hours to some people as it will allow them to get on with other caring/domestic/training etc activities. This would need to be balanced with also having some full-time LSAs.

Explore having a rota for parents/grandparents of pupils at your school to help and set this as an expectation – this may not fully solve the recruitment problem but may help to reduce the urgency of vacancies. You could also do this when you need a project to be completed – such as preparing books/trays for the new school year and auditing library books etc.

Recruiting an apprentice

Please see our apprenticeships page

Defining your recruitment needs

Before you consider advertising your role, you need to be clear on what you are trying to recruit and what skills, experience and qualifications are required for the job.

Ensure you have reviewed and updated the job description and person specification, ensuring these documents have safeguarding statements included. Why not look at adverts for similar roles to see what other people are including in their documents.

Attracting candidates

So once, you are clear about the job description and person specification, you now need to attract candidates to apply for the role. This is sometimes a step which is not given as much consideration as it requires. We’ve created some guidance to help you give candidates the best experience possible, which will make it more likely they will accept your job offer and talk positively about your school.

Candidate experience

Template adverts

We don’t want all our adverts to look or feel the same but hope that these will provide you with some ideas.

Template advert- Administration role
Template advert – Caretaker role
Template advert – Cleaner role
Template advert - Cook Chef
Template advert – LSA role
Template advert – Midday Supervisor role
Template advert – Primary Headteacher role
Template advert – Primary Teacher role
Template advert – Secondary Teacher role

Firstly, write an advert, which sells the job and the school to candidates, but is honest about any challenges the candidate may face. Look for unique selling points for your school – talk to recent recruits to see what attracted them to your school. If you haven’t recently done so, you may want to review or create key values for your school.

How to create/review values

Your advert should include:

An opening overview about the role and school to entice candidates to read more.
A paragraph about your school, its ethos, approaches to teaching and learning and including a link to your website so that candidates can easily find out more about your school.
A section about the role, what are the key elements of the role, what you can offer candidates.
A section about the type of person you’re looking for, what attributes should they have.
A section on how to apply, the closing date for applications, interview dates, where to send applications, who to contact for more information and/or a tour. A safeguarding statement should always be included.

Here are some thoughts to help your advert stand out

Produce a 1-2 minute recruitment video so that candidates get more of a sense of your school. The BC Resourcing team can help you with this.

Write the advert from the perspective of a child at your school, this may work particularly well if you are seeking a dedicated LSA to work with a named child.

If you are seeking a foreign language teacher, why not write your advert in the language required.

If you are seeking a Maths teacher why not write an equation in your advert heading such as SKILL + RESULTS = CAREER PROGRESSION.

Seeking a caretaker why not show a picture of a broken desk and say ‘if you feel like looking away, then go the next advert, if you feel a nice to fix this, then come and talk to us about joining us.’

Seeking a midday supervisor – why not show a plate of food with words on the plate to show the skills you’re looking for instead of a picture of food.

Next, gather your job description and person specification and any other documents it would be helpful for candidates to see. For leadership roles we would encourage schools to create a candidate pack which includes a welcome letter from the Head or Chair of Governors, more detailed information on the school and a summary of the latest OFSTED report. Is your website up-to-date and relevant for applicants?

Guidance on reviewing your website

Now you are ready to publish your advert. We can help you to get your advert noticed. We’d recommend publishing your job on the BC recruitment website which is generating around 4 million hits per year. Looking at Primary Headteacher recruitment in 2015/16, 75% of successful candidates saw the advert on the BC website, with just 25% seeing the advert in the TES. Adverts from the BC website are also picked up and re-advertised for free on a number of other websites including E-teach, Indeed, Glassdoor, Jobisjob, Jobrapido, Adzuna, Neuvo, Newsnow etc Adverts on the BC website also trigger automated job alerts to candidates who are seeking similar roles.

We’d recommend allowing candidates around 2 weeks in which to apply, this should allow candidates time to visit the school and ideally 2 weekends to complete their application. Please be mindful of school holidays when some candidates may be away.

We can help you to promote your advert on professional networks such as Linked-in and on social media channels such as Twitter and Facebook.

If you do not attract sufficient good quality applications, please get in touch with us.

Recruiting Ukrainian applicants

The process of employing an Ukrainian applicant is the same as for any other applicant.

To apply for a job, Ukrainian applicants will usually need to send:

an application form
a CV (curriculum vitae) - a list of their qualifications and experience
a letter with some information about themselves and the job they are applying for

They can get help with writing a CV or completing an application form from several organisations including Adviza and the Oasis Partnership (Routes to Work).

Buckinghamshire Council can check the UK equivalents of the Ukrainian qualifications for free. To apply for a free formal statement they can email ukrainesupport@buckinghamshire.gov.uk.

Ukrainian citizens have the right to work as soon as they arrive in the UK. Employers must check that applicants are allowed to work for them in the UK before employing them. Ukrainian will be able to use their Biometric Residence Permit as evidence of their immigration status in the UK, including their right to work.

To prove the status digitally to an employer, they can use the online service, which is found on prove your right to work (gov.uk).

All other pre-employment checks will be required to be completed as normal - this includes a DBS check if required for the role, Certificate of Good Conduct, references, and qualifications etc.

More information is available on the Buckinghamshire Council website for Ukrainian refugees who arrived to UK: Help and support if you’ve recently arrived from Ukraine | Buckinghamshire Council

Secondment

Current situation

We know that it is a difficult recruitment market at present. Teachers are being offered roles, accepting them and then withdrawing, sometimes at the 11th hour. The number of maternity non-returners is high.

Around 20% of NQTs are leaving the profession after 1 year.

Some schools are finding it hard to recruit support staff. Recruitment and temporary agencies are getting more aggressive in encouraging teachers to sign up with them and we have seen some unscrupulous behaviour by some agencies. We have also heard about some Heads who are ‘poaching’ staff from other schools to plug their own vacancies.

So what can we do to address this?

There are a lot of actions which schools can take/are taking to address this problem including:

attraction strategies, better adverts/information for candidates.
marketing themselves on professional networks/social media
early engagement with candidates to build relationships
CPD, succession planning, flexibility
advertising roles on a part-time/job share basis to widen the candidate pool
re-engineering roles so that you aren’t wanting candidates to work split shifts such as 7.30-9.00am and then again 3.00 to 6.00pm

We would also like schools to consider offering secondments.

The benefits of this are:

schools can retain key staff
school & staff benefit from sharing best practice
CPD opportunity for existing staff
makes staff feel motivated and valued
school can temporarily replace a member of staff, potentially at lower cost.
good opportunity to further build inter-school relationships

How would this work?

A school advertises a secondment/fixed term opportunity, either in the normal way, or through discussions at Hub meetings. The secondment would be for a minimum of 0.5 day per week for a half-term and maximum of full-time for 1 academic year.

Applicants would apply in the normal way, but would also have discussions with their own school about applying for a secondment, to see if agreement to be released can be gathered.

A selection process is completed to decide which candidate should be appointed.

Discussions are then held between the recruiting school, releasing school & individual to see if agreement for a secondment can be finalised. If a secondment cannot be finalised, the individual can decide whether to accept a fixed term contract.

The releasing school continues to pay the salary of the individual, at a higher rate if appropriate, and re-charges the recruiting school. The individual has continuous service with the releasing school.

The releasing school could consider an agreement with the recruiting school setting out the dates and terms of the secondment. This could include a fee if the recruiting school offer the candidate a permanent job, terms for extension/early release etc.

The recruiting school, completes induction, training & appraisal for the secondee.

The releasing school, keeps in touch with the secondee to ensure he/she can make a planned return to the school and ensuring that the secondee is involved in any consultations which affect his/her substantive role.

Questions from the recruiting school

Do I need to do all the pre-employment safeguarding checks?

If the arrangement is being done as a secondment, then we would recommend that you treat the secondee in the same way as you might an agency worker, asking for evidence of relevant checks of employer. You may decide to carry out a new DBS check if it has been a long time since one was completed and should complete a new DBS check if the current one isn’t relevant to the pupil age.

If the arrangement is offered on a fixed-term basis, because the releasing school wouldn’t release the worker, then all standard checks for new employees should be carried out.

What should I do if the secondment isn’t working out?

You should talk to the secondee and his/her line manager at the releasing school, discussing the reasons/situation and seeking to find a mutually agreeable solution. However, if there are performance, safeguarding or health & attendance issues, these should be managed by the recruiting school, unless there is a risk of termination of employment in which case it should be managed jointly through set procedures.

What should I do if there is an allegation about the secondee?

This should be managed jointly by the recruiting and releasing school using set procedures.

What should I do if the secondment is needed for less time than we originally thought?

Talk to the releasing school and secondee as quickly as possible and agree a mutually agreeable solution, bear in mind that the releasing school may have made arrangements to backfill the secondees substantive role.

Questions from the releasing school

What should I do if our school restructures/has redundancies during the secondment?

Ensure that you involve the secondee in consultation arrangements, treat him/her as if they were an active member of staff.

What should I do if the status of our school changes (eg from maintained to academy)?

Ensure that you involve the secondee in consultation arrangements, treat him/her as if they were an active member of staff.

What if I need the secondee back in our school?

Talk to the recruiting school and secondee as quickly as possible and try to agree a mutually agreeable solution.

What should I do if the secondee is offered a job at the recruiting school?

Talk to the secondee as quickly as possible, does he/she want to accept the offer? What notice period is he/she on? Are there terms in the secondment agreement that means your school is due money from the recruiting school?

Selection tools for shortlisting candidates and obtaining references

Selection is the process by which you decide which candidate should be appointed to your role.

Before you start to shortlist or assess candidates, review the required skills to see if any are more critical and should get a higher weighting in shortlisting/assessment, for example if recruiting for a Teacher, is a clear understanding of safeguarding more important than experience of coordinating parent evenings?

Shortlisting

Two or three people should review all the applications you’ve received against the person specification for the job and decide which candidates should be interviewed.

We recommend that these people work independently and then get together to discuss and review the applications and their decisions, so that they can be debated and a consensus reached.

Using two or three people will provide a broader view of candidates than just one person doing the shortlisting as we all interpret information in different ways.

We encourage you to summarise why candidates haven’t been shortlisted and that a person is nominated to give feedback for each candidate if it’s requested.

Selection tools

A variety of selection tools will give you more robust evidence of a candidate’s ability than an interview alone. Please see attached guidance on different selection tools.

Schools selection exercises

Guidance on selection tools

We’d recommend you draw up a selection matrix so that you can be sure you are testing all the essential requirements for the role and are seeking evidence of these skills in different situations (exercises). See below an example selection matrix

Involving different assessors will give you a broader perception of the candidate. Each assessor should see evaluate all candidates to ensure consistency, ie Assessor A&C should mark all in-tray exercises, Assessors A&B should interview all candidates, Assessors B&C should mark the written exercise etc.

Remember that references form a key element of our safeguarding and selection decisions. We recommend that references are taken up before interview so that any issues can be raised with the candidate.

Example selection matrix

Competency based interviews

Competencies are defined as "behaviours that employees must have, or acquire, to input into a situation in order to achieve high levels of performance" CIPD. Research has shown that past behaviour is the best indicator of future performance. Therefore, if we have evidence that someone has performed well in a particular work situation before, it is likely that they will perform well again.

To ensure that we get firm evidence, a competency question asks for specific examples from the candidate's past and follows up as initial question with several probing questions such as How? What? When? Why? This ensures the interviewer fully understands the answer and that the candidate has had the opportunity to impart sufficient information.

Competency based interview questions usually start with ‘Tell me about a time when you…’ or ‘Give me an example of when you…’

Please see attached guidance on competency based interviewing questions and example questions.

Introduction to competency based interviewing
Example competency based interview questions
Example competency interview questions Leadership and Teaching specific
Example assessment centre timetable
Example marking sheet

Evaluating assessment evidence

Once you’ve gathered all your evidence from interviews and other selection tools, you need to collate it to work out who is the right candidate for the job, bearing in mind there may be some situations where no-one has demonstrated skills at the right level to be appointed.

We would encourage you to use the ORCE model (Observe, Record, Classify & Evaluate). During the exercise, OBSERVE and RECORD what evidence you see. After the exercise, CLASSIFY the evidence (ie is it time management evidence or people management etc) and then EVALUATE it (ie did it meet the required standard, did it exceed the required standard, did it fail to meet the required standard, was there no evidence).

Then transfer this evidence to a matrix, so you can compare each exercise for each candidate, see attached example matrix. This should show you the strengths and weaknesses of each candidate, the overall score at the bottom will show you who has performed strongest overall. See example below:

Example selection matrix

Don’t just appoint the highest scoring individual, ensure that the assessors agree that he/she met the required standards for the job.

Agree who is going to feedback to unsuccessful candidates. Keep all selection paperwork for 6 months after the selection date, in case of any challenge on the decision and in case you need to appoint a second choice candidate (provided he/she is appointable).

References

Background

The purpose of seeking references is to allow employers to obtain factual information to support appointment decisions. Schools and colleges should obtain references before interview, this allows any concerns raised to be explored further with the referee and taken up with the candidate at interview.

Recommendations

Schools and colleges should:

not accept open references e.g. to whom it may concern;
not rely on applicants to obtain their reference;
ensure any references are from the candidate’s current employer and have been completed by a senior person with appropriate authority (if the referee is school or college based the reference should be confirmed by the headteacher/principal as accurate in respect to disciplinary investigations);
obtain verification of the individual’s most recent relevant period of employment where the applicant is not currently employed;
secure a reference from the relevant employer from the last time the applicant worked with children (if not currently working with children);
always verify any information with the person who provided the reference;
ensure electronic references originate from a legitimate source;
contact referees to clarify content where information is vague or insufficient information is provided;
compare the information on the application form with that in the reference and take up any discrepancies with the candidate;
establish the reason for the candidate leaving their current or most recent post; and,
ensure any concerns are resolved satisfactorily before appointment is confirmed.

Providing references

When asked to provide references schools should ensure the information confirms whether they are satisfied with the applicant’s ability to work with children and provide the facts (not opinions) of any substantiated safeguarding allegations but should not include information about allegations which are unsubstantiated, unfounded, false or malicious.

References should not include information about concerns/allegations which are unsubstantiated, unfounded, false, or malicious. References are an important part of the recruitment process and should be provided in a timely manner and not hold up proceedings.

Offering employment, on-boarding, induction and review

Offer

So, you’ve now got a candidate who the assessors agree is appointable and is the best person for the role.

Any offer made at this stage, should be conditional upon satisfactory pre-employment checks.

These include but not limited to:

satisfactory references,
satisfactory safeguarding and DBS checks
pre-employment Medical Questionnaire
car Insurance Certificate and License
certificate of all Qualifications stated as essential on the person specification
original documentary evidence that entitles you to work in the UK
bank details

Failure to make an offer ‘conditional’ can mean you are stuck with an applicant if they don’t have satisfactory references etc.

We’d recommend that you make a conditional verbal offer to the successful candidate and ask if they are going to accept the offer, before rejecting any other appointable candidates.

Follow up on the pre-employment and safeguarding checks as quickly as possible so that the offer can be confirmed.

On-boarding

The period between offer and start is called the on-boarding period. Sadly, this is sometimes a period of little contact between the employer and employee, but should be a period in which the working relationship starts to grow.

To help your employee settle into his/her new role more quickly and feel a part of your team, why not:

send copies of newsletters
invite him/her to team meetings/events
send links to your school policies
discuss what you think the induction will look like and ask the employee for their thoughts.
let the employee know what he/she needs to bring on the first day
keep the employee updated on how their pre-employment checks are going.

Induction

An induction should be tailored to the post that the new starter is doing and also the job holder themselves. There will be some statutory items to cover such as Health and Safety and some policies and procedures to cover such as Safeguarding, IT, Security etc.

We’d encourage you to talk to the new employee about the induction so that it can be jointly agreed and planned. It will help the employee to know what will be covered and to ask for any support he/she may require.

We’d encourage you to have an induction checklist for each employee, which is signed and dated to show what topics have been covered/documents handed over and when. This checklist can be helpful if there are issues during the probationary period.

Recruitment review

Once your new starter has been in place for a few weeks, it is good practice to review your recruitment and selection process and produce a short document to help you with future recruitment & selection.

Your review should consider:

how many individuals requested an application pack?
how many applicants applied?
where did applicants see your advert – which media had the best impact?
what was the quality of applications like? How many were you able to shortlist?
how many of the applicants shortlisted came for interview?
what was the calibre of those who came for interview? – Consider if there is anything you may want to add in/change on your advert/application form to improve the shortlisting process
what was the location of the applicants who applied?
which selection tools provided you with the best evidence?
what interview questions gave you the best evidence? Which questions did you have to regularly re-phrase?
what worked well during the selection process – ie pupil involvement?
what didn’t work well during the selection process?
what feedback/ideas can the successful candidate share to help further improve the process?
how much time did the process take?
what were the costs associated with the process?

Retention of workers

To help you reduce the amount of recruitment you need to carry out, you should consider carrying out retention activities. Having a low turnover of staff can make your workplace attractive to applicants and means you can spend more time on core business rather than recruiting. It can also help to keep the cost of temporary staff down. It will also be helpful if you carry out exit interviews with leavers to understand their reasons for leaving, this will help you to identify any patterns and also give you positive information about what is good about the role/school to help with advert wording.

Below is an exit interview template, we recommend that someone other than the immediate line manager completes the exit interview.

Exit interview template

Succession planning guidance

One reason that an employee will stay with you or will want to join your school is the career development opportunities you offer and the investment you make in your staff. Linked with this, is a schools ability to plan for scheduled and unscheduled absence, when a member of staff with key skills or knowledge may be away from work at short notice, sometimes for a long period of time.

To support this, we’ve written some guidance about succession planning – this helps to:

identify key skills/knowledge within your school
identify where there is a single point of failure, eg if only one member of staff knows how to process invoices and he/she goes sick/leaves.
identify development opportunities for your staff

See more about succession planning

Plan ahead

Headteachers aged 55+ can opt for phased retirement, allowing a Deputy to act up on the Heads non-working days. This provides the Deputy with some good experience and development while maintaining stability.

Ensure your school has a succession plan. This should identify training and development opportunities for staff and could also help to identify acting up arrangements for both planned absences and unplanned ones. This may help with retention if Teachers can see a planned career path and development.

If you are not a teaching school or part of a teaching school group, it makes sense to join as it will provide you with a regular supply of Early Careers Teachers (ECTs) and there is a lot of evidence to show that people who complete training in a school are likely to accept an offer from that school.

Could you consider a rota whereby each Deputy/SMT member person takes it in turn to act as Head for a term/school year? This would generate considerable savings and could provide an opportunity for another member of staff to act-up to the Deputy/Assistant role and therefore gain development and experience.

Retention/Attraction strategies

Consider offering relocation/accommodation support to candidates – but be aware that this will have to meet HMRC rules and would need to be published in your pay policy.

You could consider golden hello and/or golden handcuff payments, but these can become expected and may be seen as a pay cut if you stop paying them and any award would need to be published in your pay policy and in accordance with the School Teachers Pay & Condition document 2015.

Can you put an LSA into every Maths/Science class to support the Teacher? This may be a selling point to candidates as it shows there is extra support for them in your school.

Do you have any Higher LSAs who can take a class to either give the Teacher time to spend with a group within the class or more time for PPA on a regular basis?

Succession planning

Schools need great staff who have pride in being a part of an organisation.

Succession planning is important for three reasons:

1. It ensures effective staffing throughout the school

Plans help schools cope with anticipated and unexpected changes in key personnel. This reduces the impact and stress of these changes.

2. It makes recruitment easier

Candidates will be more attracted to schools that highlight:

career development opportunities
training
CPD

Case studies on career advancement in recruitment adverts help sell schools as a good place to work.

3. It assists with retention

Employees who feel they are being invested in are likely to be more engaged. They will also feel a stronger sense of:

loyalty
commitment
satisfaction

What is it?

Succession planning ensures school staff are recruited and developed to fill key roles within and beyond the school.

Succession planning looks at:

current strengths
future needs
gaps which are then addressed through training and development

It identifies key personnel and assesses who could cover their role on a temporary or permanent basis. This ensures that pro-active and structured support is in place as contingency measures.

Succession planning is not just about upwards career movement. It should include sideways steps and provide contingency plans in the event of temporary or permanent staff loss.

The focus should:

be positive and engaging
acknowledge strengths and ask staff about their career aspirations
involve working together, developing staff for the individual as well as the school

We recommend that all roles within schools are included. This is so everyone who contributes to the successful running of a school is considered and fully developed.

How?

Staff development

It's important to:

make all staff aware, promote opportunities within the school, and encourage participation
identify 'potential' and enable training and support
set out individual plans for development and potential for next career steps
view it as a success when a member of staff moves onto a leadership position at another school

When identifying 'potential', be mindful of identifying people 'like us' and perpetuating barriers to people who are 'not like us'.

Development opportunities may include:

work shadowing for staff who aspire to more senior/broader roles (both within the school and in other schools)
exchanges and visits to other schools
use of mentoring and coaching schemes
providing short, focused leadership opportunities for aspiring leaders
work with other schools to take advantage of beneficial leadership development opportunities

Organisation

As an organisation it's important to:

review and check organisational structure
look at effectiveness and development of new models
ensure appropriate induction and support for all staff
make appointments to roles which provides opportunities for candidates with 'potential'

Headteachers and governing bodies will check individual performance and development. They will do this on an annual basis through appropriate committees (Resources).

They will also check the workforce profile to look at patterns or trends. This will help identify risks and actions, including:

diversity of staff
staff turnover rate
length of service
reasons for leaving
summary of training and development provided
appropriate local and national leadership development and succession planning initiatives
developing a school culture which offers development opportunities
ensuring school budget funding supports agreed priorities for development
ensuring headteachers and senior leaders explore the benefits of collaborative approaches with other schools