The A-Z of Secondary Leadership

School leadership is the best job in the world, despite being frustrating, exhausting and at times utterly bamboozling. We are required to change our focus frequently and immediately, planning for the next five years one minute, dealing with the next five seconds the next. We manage multi-million-pound budgets and we pick up crisp packets. We live a life of constant contrasts, meeting hurtling deadlines, solving inscrutable riddles, experiencing profound joy and also heartbreaking disappointment. From time to time, we look up from our work and realise how very privileged we are to work in such an important, rewarding, valuable role.

The A-Z of Secondary Leadership considers how we approach leadership in secondary schools, from the moment of arrival in a new post to the exploration of further possibilities. It covers creating a culture, recruiting and retaining the best staff, encouraging cognitive diversity, working with stakeholders, leading in the community and, perhaps most importantly, how to look after yourself as you take on a very challenging role.

Combining broad knowledge of the education system with a clear-headed assessment of the challenges faced by schools and some practical tips for successful leadership, this book is essential reading for aspiring, recently appointed and more experienced secondary school leaders. It is filled with pragmatism, humour, energy and advice. Taking a detailed yet down-to-earth approach to leadership theory and practice, Andy Hunter considers the various demands placed upon secondary school leaders and shares the insights and experiences that he has gained on his journey from supply teacher to executive head.

In the late 1990s, after two frustrating and unsatisfying years as a newly qualified English teacher, Andy Hunter accepted that his career in education was a failed experiment and resigned to explore other options. Six months later, he took what he intended to be a week of supply work at a different school, fell in love with it and has never looked back.

Andy has worked in schools ever since, including nearly 20 years as a senior leader. He now works as an executive headteacher, leading a partnership of schools in Suffolk working with children and young people from early years to A-level. His early experiences gave him an acute and critical awareness of the power of leaders to set the culture and climate in their schools, and of the impact those decisions have on teachers and students alike.

The schools in which he has worked, in areas ranging from London boroughs to rural Cambridgeshire, represent a variety of circumstances and needs. A veteran of Ofsted and HMI inspections numbering well into double figures, Andy has experience of school improvement at every Ofsted grading.

Andy loves being on duty, talking to children and delivering assemblies. He also loves sailing, canoeing, hill walking and jazz. The A-Z of Secondary Leadership is his first book.