Trials and tribulations of replacing a primary headteacher

After more than two decades in charge, the headteacher of Killermont Primary School in Bearsden is heading off for a well-earned retirement, and a replacement is required. So far, so normal.

As of last week, the standard process for all of this was well underway, with dates already in the diary for short-listing and interviews, and the parent council prepped to contribute.

Again: so far, so normal. Until it wasn’t.

On Tuesday this week, that same parent council sent out an extraordinary letter raising their “serious concerns over the process to appoint the new headteacher.”

What were those concerns? Well, the night before (Monday 20th May), they had been advised that Greg Bremner, the East Dunbartonshire Director of Education, had decided to halt the recruitment process, disregard the existing applicants, cancel interviews, and appoint a current council employee as the headteacher.

No more discussion. No more process. Just an imposition.

The school would take what it was given by one of the local authority’s top bureaucrats – the kind of person who always knows best.

Unsurprisingly, the parent council weren’t happy. As well as contacting parents and carers, they also wrote to Bremner complaining about his “refusal to undertake a robust process to properly identify the best candidate for the role”. They also raised the “unfairness to candidates who have applied in the expectation of a fair and transparent process”, and the “apparent disregard of a legal requirement to properly include the Parent Council in the appointment process.”

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I became aware of all this at 11:54 on Tuesday morning and sent an email to the council’s press office less than thirty minutes later, asking for “a comment from the council explaining the decision to impose an existing council staff member as headteacher rather than follow the usual process.”

At 12:30, a press officer confirmed receipt of my email and advised that they would get back to me “asap”.

I then spoke to the chair of the parent council, who talked me through the situation at the school.

“Our main concern,” she said, “is that a fair and proper process hasn’t been carried out”.

She also told me that the soon-to-depart headteacher “is well loved and respected and anyone following her needs to be right for the position”.

“Regardless of the fact that the proposed candidate has the relevant qualifications, the lack of due process is very worrying, and we are concerned as to why this is happening. If that candidate is suitable for the role, then they should be allowed to be a part of the interview process that the other candidates were already accepted to be a part of.”

She also made another, very specific point: that the imposition of a headteacher by council officials seems to obviously contravene existing laws and guidelines.

The more I uncovered, the stranger the situation seemed to be, so I decided to send another email – this time to the Scottish Government. I asked if Jenny Gilruth, the education secretary, is comfortable with headteachers being imposed on schools without clear processes being followed, and if it is appropriate for a council to directly appoint someone to this post without any interviews.

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To be honest, I didn’t know if they’d respond, because this is very much an issue for the local council rather than the national government; however, I also knew that parents had already written to Gilruth about the situation, so figured that, on balance, they might be willing to at least offer some kind of reaction. My email to the Scottish Government was sent at 13:46.

A few minutes after that, I contacted East Dunbartonshire again to ask some additional questions:

Could other schools in the area face having a new headteacher imposed like this in future?

Had the person the council wanted to parachute into the post applied for the job in the first place?

If this person was coming from another school in the area, would their role then be filled or would it simply be cut?

What happened next was remarkable.

By 16:30, I had heard that the council was planning a u-turn.

Then, twenty minutes later, the Scottish Government did get back to me. There was no formal comment, but they confirmed that all councils – including East Dunbartonshire – must comply with The Parental Involvement in Headteacher and Deputy Headteacher Appointments (Scotland) Regulations 2007. These rules clearly state that local authorities must “consult with any Parent Council” and “have regard to the views of that Parent Council.”

When the East Dunbartonshire press office finally responded (at 17:43), it was to issue a four-sentence statement that was attributed not to Greg Bremner but rather to Ann Davie, the chief executive of the local authority:

“Discussions regarding the recruitment and selection processes for the post of Head Teacher at Killermont Primary School remain ongoing.

“Due to the confidential nature of this process, we cannot discuss the personal circumstances of candidates.

“We will continue to engage with the Parent Council and will review all applicants before performing our selection process for this post. This will be done in consultation with the Parent Council.”

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So the end result is what the parents wanted: a headteacher won’t be imposed by the council; the interview process will be carried out as planned; and the parent council will have a role in the appointment of the new school leader.

But is that only happening because these parents were lucky enough to be put in touch with just the right journalist at just the right time?

I did ask the council to explain what had happened in the previous few hours to make them change their mind about directly appointing the new headteacher of Killermont Primary – but they wouldn’t answer that question.

I have no idea why that might be the case.