In an increasingly fragmented and competitive education system, recruiting the ‘best’ school leaders is based on fabricated notions of leadership. A recent job advert earned derision for being off-putting rather than inspiring. However, we argue here that what was shocking was that the advert left out the fabrications and said the quiet part out loud.
To succeed, school leaders indeed have to deal with contradictions; not allow ‘under-achievers’ onto the bus; challenge, not please, their customers; work too hard and support the vision. We argue that these recruiters are not to blame; their requirements are a logical response to a damaging policy landscape.
School leadership is contradictory, which this advert accurately reflects. We point out these contradictions not as a ‘gotcha’ to the school, but to note that school leadership has long been used to suture together contradicting elements in public-services provision. Consequently, the ideal assistant headteacher here will ‘display candour’ unless disagreeing with the school vision, which must be enacted. The school offers ‘a strong commitment to reducing workload’, yet requires candidates to ‘work ridiculously hard’.
Applicants must evidence ‘innovation and creativity’ while ‘ensur[ing] the effective operation of quality control systems in … teaching, learning, behaviour and achievement’. The clashing elements are located in different educational paradigms, that is, welfarist versus corporatised/managerialist; they cannot align. The issue is structural, not individual to this school.
