Inverness Courier reporter, Annabelle Gauntlett, interviewed Inverness High School head teacher after he resigned from his post.
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00:00 do you feel like now is the right time? There's a whole load of circumstances, some of them
00:08 are personal and which I don't really want to go into them but there's a whole host of
00:14 things that have kind of come together at the same time so I think it's probably time
00:18 to move on. And as three out of five high schools in Inverness don't currently have
00:23 a permanent headteacher, do you think there needs to be some improvements made to the
00:28 recruitment process of headteachers? There's a few things actually that are involved there
00:32 because one of the reasons we moved up in the first place, I've been here for nine years
00:37 and quality of life was a big thing for us moving north. It's obviously not the quality
00:44 of life that's putting people off applying for jobs in Highland, the remoteness is obviously
00:51 a bit of an issue for some people. I think there is a recruitment problem, not just with
01:01 headteachers but with teachers across Highland and also in certain circumstances nationally
01:08 as well. Jobs are well paid, can't deny that, but it is pretty stressful and so I think
01:16 that does affect people's decisions when they look at headteachers and they see what
01:21 they have to deal with. Do you think that the duties that you're expected to do as
01:26 a headteacher when you originally sign up are aligned with what you actually have to
01:31 do? That's a difficult one. So I did a qualification called the standard for headship which was
01:39 the original kind of headship qualification, it's been replaced now by something else.
01:45 We did a lot of work in that about how to strategically lead a school, how to raise
01:52 attainment and do all the long term thinking that was originally why I came into it. I
02:01 thought that was how you were going to make a big difference to the school but the reality
02:06 is somewhat different. There's so many things that are so immediate that have to be dealt
02:11 with on a day to day basis that you often don't get time to get around to the strategic
02:17 stuff as much as you would like. The duties are not, I think when you get into the role
02:22 that's the only time that you find out exactly what the duties are and you have to deal with
02:27 things that you didn't really expect to like leaking roofs and refurbishment projects that
02:33 go on for a long time and the duties, the immediate day to day duties do get in the
02:40 way of long term planning unfortunately.
02:42 What improvements do you think need to be made with the recruitment process of teachers?
02:48 There are certain issues I would say with, we have what's called a job sizing process
02:57 for senior staff in secondary schools. I think this is something that needs to be addressed
03:03 at a national scale because you end up with head teachers especially in smaller schools
03:09 getting paid less than perhaps deputy's in bigger schools. I think there's more support
03:17 perhaps that's needed in the way of staffing for secondary schools.