Dear colleague
Ask a new headteacher what surprised them most in their first year, and the answer is rarely about timetables or data dashboards. It's the discovery that headship is less a set of skills to master and more an identity to grow into, shaped daily by the conversations you have, the boundaries you hold, and the 'why' you keep returning to when the in-tray won't let up. The NPQH builds the conceptual foundations; what it can't fully prepare you for is the lived texture of the role itself, the parent meeting that derails your morning, the colleague whose performance has quietly slipped for years, the staffroom watching how you handle both.
That's the territory Headteacher Essentials was built for. Cohort 3 opens with a face-to-face day at ASCL HQ in Leicester on 10 July 2026, starting with exactly that question of why: your purpose as a leader, and how it shows up in word and deed long before anyone reads your vision statement. From there, eight online twilight sessions run through to May 2027, each built around the real decisions new heads face: holding wellbeing (yours as much as everyone else's), getting communication right when the whole school is watching, managing underperformance fairly, handling the parental relationships that take up disproportionate headspace, and building the kind of retention, delegation, and community presence that make the job sustainable rather than relentless.
It sits alongside the NPQH rather than repeating it - practical, peer-informed, and unapologetic about the parts of headship that rarely make it into a qualification handbook.
Whether you're newly into headship, a head of school, on your way there soon, or supporting someone who is, it's worth a look. And if July feels a way off yet, the blog on navigating the first year of headship and the Stepping Up podcast are both good company in the meantime.
Best
wishes
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