1. Your Headship Interview There a number of techniques and strategies that you can adopt to make sure that you make the best of the hard- won interview. Building these into your approach will help you to make the best business case for your appointment – and will create a positive impact with your interviewer panel.

2. Your Interview – be confident. First, you have been short-listed. Your application must have connected with the governing body on some level. You are already ahead. Second, governors desperately want you to succeed at interview. They start each interview wanting the candidate in front of them to be the solution to the problem of finding a new headteacher. No selection panel starts out with the aim of not making an appointment.

3. Your Interview – be the head! So your job as a candidate is to make sure the panel has no reason not to appoint you. In short, governors have got to believe that you are their next headteacher. And this is where the right mindset is key. From the first moment you set foot over the threshold of a school to begin an interview and selection process, your outlook and behaviour must be those of a prospective headteacher – not an aspirant deputy, but a head-in-waiting.

4. Your Interview – no jargon. Interviews for headteacher vacancies are predominantly led by governors, many of whom are from backgrounds other than education. As a result, don’t assume that they will be familiar with the acronyms or jargon you may use on a daily basis. They will probably have a pre-arranged set of questions that they have drawn up, which aims to cover all the competencies for the role, and which they will use to assess you against other candidates. If you use terms that they are not familiar with, they might not have opportunities to prompt you to explain further. You could lose opportunities to convey the impact and outcomes you have achieved in examples you outline to them.

5. Your Interview – be passionate! This is a chance for you to talk about a job you love doing, with people who care passionately about schools too. See it as a dialogue that will stretch and challenge you. Remember it’s not a confrontation, but your opportunity to convey your message clearly and concisely.

6. Your Interview – be credible Interviews are not just about what you know. They are about your credibility as a prospective headteacher. Put bluntly, can the governors imagine you leading their school? Do they believe that you will deliver? Credibility is established in many ways. Research has found that the content of what someone said contributed relatively little in establishing overall credibility. An individual’s tone and style of speaking contributed much more, and visual stimuli contributed most. So every aspect of your appearance and behaviour must be consistent with being the next headteacher, almost as if you were in the post already.

7. Your Interview – connect! A good interview will probe your experience and look for evidence that you can do what you say you can. An experienced, capable candidate could sail through those questions, and still not differentiate themselves from others. By the time you get to the final interview stage, successful candidates are achieving connection with the panel. As well as demonstrating achievement (which, by definition, is backward looking), strong candidates are connecting their experience forward and discussing how they can make a difference in the new school. They are offering a vision of the future too.

8. Your Interview – connect!! Don’t miss an opportunity to connect. For example, a common question format is: “Can you give us an example of when you have...” to ask you to illustrate a specific competence. Three-part answers can help turn a retrospective answer into an opportunity to link with the school: set out the example of achievement demonstrate the outcome apply the experience to the new school’s challenges, showing how you could add value.

9. Your Interview – connect!!! There are other ways to connect too. Formal interviews (and presentations) usually come at the end of a long selection process. They are a chance to demonstrate what you have picked up over the previous two days. So refer to the observations you have made, the relationships you have struck up.

10. Your Interview – know your audience. Governing bodies can make challenging interview panels from a candidate’s perspective. Governors come from all walks of life. Some will know a great deal about the current education agenda, and some will not. In addition, there will often be a representative from the local authority on the panel, who will also ask questions. The potential diversity of your audience presents a challenge. The interview may sometimes appear to lurch from one subject to another with little connection – the state of the toilets on one question to your view of personalised learning with the next. Be ready. Just roll with it.

11. Your Interview – know your audience. You’ll need to adapt your level continually. You need to show you are up with the policy agenda for some – so some jargon may be OK – but be more direct to keep others with you. The bottom line is this: know who you are talking to. What does the chair of governors do for a living? What about the other panel members? What is the background of the local authority representative? If you know your audience, you are more likely to pitch what you say at the right level. Your attitude towards, say, the development of personalised learning, may best be illustrated by an example of what you have actually done in your current role. It’s a more accessible style of communication and has the added benefit of demonstrating that as well as understanding the issues, you can deliver.

12. Your Interview – competency-based questions. Employers are increasingly using this approach. The theory behind the method is that past behaviour at work is a good predictor of future job performance. When interviewers ask you competency-based questions, they want you to talk about how you have actually tackled real problems in the past.

13. Your Interview: get a Head START! You can use the START formula to give your answers a structure: Situation – describe a situation, context or problem that you have encountered Task – describe the task, as you understood it; and your ideas for resolving the problem Action – describe the action you took, including obstacles that you had to overcome Results – highlight the outcomes achieved – and those anticipated The Future, This School, This Post – how will these outcomes be assured in the school to which you are applying? Use the START method to practice answering the key questions you will be asked, using language that is clear and jargon-free, and gives the interviewer the evidence he or she needs to see that you are the right candidate for the role.

14. Your Interview: a competency-based question. Tell us a little about how you have tacked problems with poor standards of behaviour, in classrooms, corridors and social spaces in school and how you feel they will be part of your future leadership approach? If you have good current knowledge: ‘START’. If you are less familiar with the issue: ‘attitude, actions, say and do’.

15. Your Interview: a competency-based question. Tell me how you would go about dealing with a member of staff who has a poor pattern of attendance and low standards of lesson preparation and assessment of pupil work; and how you feel they will be part of your future leadership approach? If you have good current knowledge: ‘START’. If you are less familiar with the issue: ‘attitude, actions, say and do’.

16. Your Interview: a competency-based question. Could you explain how you would go about ensuring that all staff (and pupils) take full advantage of the on-line, connectivity and ICT applications that are currently available? If you have good current knowledge: ‘START’. If you are less familiar with the issue: ‘attitude, actions, say and do’.

17. Your Interview: a competency-based question. Could you tell me a little about how you would ensure that standards of literacy, particularly writing continue to improve in our school? If you have good current knowledge: ‘START’. If you are less familiar with the issue: ‘attitude, actions, say and do’.

18. Your Interview – difficult questions. “Why do you want this job?” This is the open goal of interview questions. Candidates should launch the ball into the back of the net – but too often miss the goal entirely. The answer is not: “because I have achieved everything I can in my current role and it is time to look for a new one” or “because this job is much nearer home and I can reduce my commute”; or “because I have decided to start applying for headship this year after completing my NPQH.” The answer should be specific to the school in question, linking your experience to its agenda, and be optimistic and forward-looking.

19. Your Interview – difficult questions. ‘Are you still a firm candidate?’ This is usually the last question of the interview. An astonishing number of candidates hesitate – and shoot themselves in the foot at the eleventh hour. By this stage, there should only be one answer to this question: “yes”. If you are unsure, you should have had a private conversation with the chair of governors before now – or not come to the interview. Hesitate, and all can be lost.

20. Your Interview – difficult questions. Candidates worry about difficult questions, but often it is the seemingly innocuous questions that are part of almost every interview that trip people up. Here are four of the most common trip wires. Any question that doesn’t make sense Not all the panel will be skilled interviewers, and sometimes questions might be confusing or unclear. In all likelihood, the rest of the panel didn’t understand the question either. These are great opportunities to demonstrate your ability to manage an uncomfortable moment and show leadership. Take the questioner’s side. Start by helping them to clarify what they’d like to know. Define the question you’re going to answer yourself. When you’ve offered a view, check back to see if that answered the question.

21. Your Interview – difficult questions. ‘If you become headteacher/deputy head curriculum, what percentage increases in levels can we expect next year?’ If you’ve looked at the figures and have a confident and reasoned view, then offer it. If not, don’t get drawn and don’t guess. Effective leaders set realistic goals based on sound evidence. Talk about the process you would use to set goals.

22. Your Interview: a wider schools agenda question. In preparation for these interviews the governors have been reading about the ‘social cohesion’ agenda. What is your view of how our school can contribute? If you have good current knowledge: ‘START’. If you are less familiar with the issue: ‘attitude, actions, say and do’.

23. Your Interview: a wider schools agenda question. In preparation for these interviews the governors have been reading about Extended Schools. What is your view of how our small, 110-pupil school can contribute? If you have good current knowledge: ‘START’. If you are less familiar with the issue: ‘attitude, actions, say and do’.

24. Your Interview: a wider schools agenda question. In preparation for these interviews the governors have been reading about Personalised Learning. What is your view of how our school can develop this? If you have good current knowledge: ‘START’. If you are less familiar with the issue: ‘attitude, actions, say and do’.

25. Your Interview: a wider schools agenda question. In preparation for these interviews the governors have been reading about the ‘2020 Schools of the Future. What is your view of how our school can develop towards this, as well as keep the best of our traditional approaches? If you have good current knowledge: ‘START’. If you are less familiar with the issue: ‘attitude, actions, say and do’.