Preparing for Headship - Tuesday 11 November 2025 (Online)
This course is for: Aspiring Heads of HMC and other independent schools.
Description
Course outcomes:
- Learn about headship and its opportunities and challenges, including advice from a serving HMC head
- Understand your own development needs and career pathway in preparation for headship
- Increase your awareness of the application, interview and recruitment process for headship
- Acquire strategies for making an effective transition to headship
- Have the opportunity for structured reflection: how ready am I and how can I continue to prepare for future headship?
Course Programme
Time |
Session |
09.30 |
Welcome and introduction
Speaker: Jill Berry |
09.35 – 10.15 |
The Nature of Headship
Speaker: Sue Woodroofe, Previous Principal at The Grammar School at Leeds and Previous HMC Chair |
10.15 – 11.00 |
Making the Leap: navigating the recruitment and selection process
Speaker: Jill Berry |
11.00 – 11.10 |
Break |
11.10 – 12.00 |
Making the transition to headship – the perspective of a HMC head
Speaker: Karl Guest, Head at St Columba’s College |
12.00 – 12.30 |
Structured Reflection: How ready are you, and what are your next steps? Speaker: Jill Berry |
12.30 |
Close |
Course Leader Biography:
Jill taught for thirty years across six different schools in the UK, state and independent, and she taught adults to GCSE and A level in the evenings for several years. She was a head for the last ten years of her time in schools. Since 2010 she has completed a doctorate, researching the transition to headship and written a book about it: 'Making the Leap - Moving from Deputy to Head' (Crown House, 2016) https://www.crownhouse.co.uk/publications/making-the-leap (also now available as an audio book); and carried out an extensive range of leadership development work. She has given a TEDx presentation on the subject of ‘Take a Second Look: Bring Out the Best in Yourself and Others’: https://www.ted.com/talks/jill_berry_take_a_second_look_bring_out_the_best_in_yourself_and_others and she has published four novels. See her author page: https://www.amazon.co.uk/stores/author/B01JSM9UXI