According to new findings published by The Independent today, outstanding schools are finding it increasingly difficult to recruit top quality head teachers and other senior staff – with applications for head teacher roles sometimes littered with grammatical mistakes and spelling errors. Emma Knights, chief executive of the National Governors Association, told the newspaper that applicants from experienced teachers were often ‘really badly completed’ – with some applicants actually spelling the name of the school in which the role was being advertised wrongly.

Schools Struggle To Fill Head Teacher Roles As Applicants Can’t Spell

According to recent figures, more than a quarter of schools have found it ‘very difficult’ to recruit high quality senior staff, whilst over half say they have struggled to recruit governors. These figures come at a time when government policies are increasingly reliant on strong senior teams – with new responsibilities such as performance related pay and the day to day running of free schools and academies.

Ms Knights suggested that the problems of recruiting high quality staff were particularly acute in faith schools, those in rural areas, and those being deemed ‘outstanding’ by Ofsted. She noted that there may be a feeling among high-quality applicants that to apply to an outstanding school may mean that the only way the school’s quality could change would be to drop down, as opposed to failing or satisfactory schools where it ‘is easier for them to make their mark.’

She also referenced the fact that, among faith schools, there is a requirement for the head to practice the faith of the particular school in question – which obviously limits the number of potential applicants. In rural areas, a potential way of resolving the lack of quality applications would be to increase the number of school federations – meaning that one head would be responsible for a number of schools within an area.