In this episode, Claire talks over the internet to Glenn Russell, executive headteacher of Stalham Academy and Stalham Infant & Pre-School in Norfolk.
Glenn talks about his background in education including about how he initially trained as a secondary teacher. He took on roles in middle schools in Norfolk before the county closed these to become a primary and secondary only system. Glenn decided to move into leadership roles in primary schools and became a deputy headteacher in a federation of four schools, eventually becoming headteacher of Stalham Junior School which, at the time, had been judged as inadequate by Ofsted. Glenn helped to turn the school around and became executive headteacher overseeing both the junior school and the infant school.
Glenn discusses how, despite the coronavirus restrictions currently in place, his school has still managed to recruit new staff and he shares some tips and advice about what has worked best and what his school have learned from this process. He also talks about the importance of care and respect within his team, how his schools support, encourage and value all staff at all levels and how this was a crucial part of improving the school from inadequate to good.
KEY TAKEAWAYS

Remote recruitment can take away some of the benefits of meeting candidates face-to-face.While remote recruitment can make some elements of an interview process easier to administer, you can lose some of the benefits of meeting people face-to-face, such as being able to get to know people a little more than you might over a video-link. You can lose some of that ‘personal’ element that you gain when meeting in person.
Be clear about how you will assess values and attributes remotely.Assessing values, skills and attributes over a remote interview can, in some ways, be quite tricky as some of these elements might be ones which you would pick up on and assess less formally face-to-face. One way around this can be to plan carefully in advance what you want from a successful candidate and structure the process and questions in a way which will promote or highlight these more clearly and explicitly.
Build in more time than you think you’ll need for remote interviews.Whereas face-to-face interviews can usually run relatively smoothly and quickly, remote interviews will invariably take longer than you might think. Whatever time you think you’ll need, it can be advisable to double it as things like technology glitches, pauses and hand-overs to others on a panel can all add up to extra minutes.
Be clear about time limits and expectations around any tasks.With on-site interviews, timings can be very tightly managed and controlled to ensure fairness for all candidates. Candidates on-site will also be on their own and you can be more certain that you are seeing them as they are. This can become more complicated with remote interviews where people could, if they wanted to, arrange to have access to other resources and help. While you can’t guarantee to be able to eliminate all of these possibilities, more tightly prescribing the amount of time each person has with tasks can go a long way to ensuring a level playing field.
Remote panel interviews can bring their own unique issues.It can be easy in remote interviews involving several people to end up talking over each other or unintentionally interrupting someone and creating awkward pauses before someone takes a lead. To help with this, be clear about handing over to someone else when it is their turn to speak and have pre-determined ‘signals’ so that everyone can see when someone might want to ‘drop in’ and ask an additional question or make a point.
Spreading the process out can be useful.Due to candidates’ other commitments, almost all interviews for school positions tend to be carried out in just one day. Remote interviews, though, can be structured to allow for more time to be able to delve into people’s responses and task submissions so that you can follow-up with questi