As many schools face contraction, leadership teams are increasingly having to manage staff restructuring and, unfortunately, redundancies. For many school leaders, this may be their first experience with such a process. This course is designed to support them in navigating these challenges as smoothly and compassionately as possible.

While HR teams typically focus on procedural efficiency, this training emphasises the human elementthe emotional and community-wide impactand the importance of thoughtful planning to minimise disruption.

Course Outline

Brendan draws on his experience as an Executive Head, where he had to close one school site and restructure staff across anothertwice in two years. These were incredibly difficult situations, but they offered valuable lessons in bridging the gap between HR processes and the support school leaders need.

In this course, Brendan will share his insights and lead practical discussions and exercises to help school leaders build confidence and capability in managing these sensitive issues.

Brendan Pavey

Brendan started his teaching career in 1997 at Colfe's School in SE London as a teacher of geography and games. He has worked as Head of Department, Head of Sixth Form, Housemaster, Headteacher and most recently as Executive Headteacher of North Bridge House Schools in North London. In this capacity Brendan also sat on the European Leadership Team for Cognita Schools.

During this time Brendan oversaw the restructuring of North Bridge House School, from 5 school sites that were working largely independently from one another, to a unified school with four headteachers and an executive head. As with much of London at that time, the falling numbers of nursery and primary aged children resulted in Brendan having to restructure his cost base and to reduce the number of classes in his schools, as well as closing one of the NBH sites.

Despite this being a very difficult time, Brendan learned a lot in the process about redundancy processes, how to manage schools through these incredibly challenging times and how to manage his teams. During this course, Brendan will share his experiences in order to help other leaders to navigate the redundancy process.

Cost: £150 per delegate; £50 each for subsequent delegates from same school

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