Geoff Barton’s thoughtful comment piece on school leaders (“Best leaders may be the ones who aren’t there”, August 14) offers various options on how schools are to be led, whether it be the ever-visible head, the non-charismatic head or the federated model (a sort of fractional head).
Such discussions are useful because education must be an organic system where change should take place when it will lead to improvement.
However, the current debate centres on looking for ways of getting round the growing shortage of leaders rather than looking at it rationally. The problem is, therefore, not methods of headship but finding enough people to do the job - a task that the DCSF has approached for years with all the drive and panache of an ostrich with a blindfold.
Tony Roberts, Lancashire NAHT administration and membership secretary, Penwortham, Preston