Primaries lacking high-quality head teachers - director
MORE primary schools in Carmarthenshire will need to share resources due to a shortage of “highquality” head teachers, the council’s director of education has said.
Gareth Morgans, pictured, said there had only been one applicant for a head teacher vacancy at a large primary in the county.
Mr Morgans said the council supported the federation of schools, whereby two or more schools operate under a single governing body and share some resources, like the head teacher.
Addressing the council’s education and children scrutiny committee, Mr Morgans said: “We have very successful federation in the secondary [school] sector.”
At the primary level, he said, there was “a lack of heads of a high standard”. Mr Morgans said some head teachers were being trained, but Carmarthenshire had “more schools than leaders”
He added: “We have a problem recruiting to our smaller schools. That’s why federation succeeds.”
Head of education effectiveness Andi Morgan said the council was working closely with regional education body Education through Regional Working regarding headteacher training.
He said there were currently five formally federated primary schools in the county, and eight informally federated ones. Mr Morgan said formally federated ones were preferable as leaders and processes tended not to change from year to year. He added: “The message I would like to share is, where there is opportunity for chairs and members to discuss a better way of joining schools, I would welcome that.”
An update of Carmarthenshire’s 2018-23 corporate strategy, which was discussed at the committee meeting, said the council will “prepare and undertake procedures associated with federation, school organisation and/or improvement projects”.
Speaking after the meeting, Mr Morgans said he believed recruiting suitably skilled and experienced school leaders for many other rural authorities was a challenge.
He added: “We appreciate our current cohort of school leaders and what they achieve.”