The Leadership Challenge 2022

The Leadership Challenge 2022: New Report recommends four key strategies to address the leadership shortage

A report published last week by three top education charities indicates that schools across England will be confronted with a serious shortage of up to 19,000 school leaders 2022, unless more is done to support teachers and senior leaders to develop and take on more responsible roles.

This report, The School Leadership Challenge: 2022 was produced by the Future Leaders Trust, Teaching Leaders and Teach First takes data from the Department for Education’s Workforce Census and Edubase system and also involved interviews and survey responses from practitioners.

The report predicts that the need for more school leaders may be caused by a number of factors, including: the growth of multi academy trusts, an increase in pupil numbers, the “high-stakes” accountability of Headship putting off some from applying as well as more school leaders retiring or leaving early.

The report also suggests that pay may be an issue and that the current remuneration system being weighted by “number of students in the school and geography, rather than the scale of the challenge” is inadequate despite the recent flexibilities given in the School Teachers’ Pay and Conditions Document (STPCD).

The report proposes four interventions to help develop leaders from within the classroom and bring leaders into the education system in the first place:

• develop a new generation of school leaders by supporting career progression
• expand the pool of candidates for non-teaching executive roles to those outside the profession
• drive system change to support leaders more effectively and provide clear career pathways
• build positive perceptions for the ‘brand’ of school leadership

To read the full press release click here: School Leadership Recruitment Article.pdf

We have recent experience of working with academies and maintained schools to develop leadership structures, roles and progression criteria to reflect organisational needs and recruitment/retention issues

Our Coaching into Appraisal programme also has a clear aim to enable leadership development at all levels and has a strong link to the National Standards of Excellence for Headteachers

For more information contact Gary Edwards on 07933 220 183 or email: garyedwards@thepmb.co.uk