Heidi Dennison and Simon Knight are joint headteachers at Frank Wise School, a special school in Oxfordshire. They were previously teaching assistants, teachers and senior leadership team at the school. They say:

Heidi: It was Simon who said, “What do you think about doing this together?” when the previous head said he was retiring. I was on the SLT at the school and Simon was working elsewhere at that time. I was immediately interested because there was an awful lot I knew I would love about headship, but there was plenty that I knew would not be naturally instinctive for me or that would not be a strength.

Simon: It is truly a joint role. We are both full-time. We have clear areas of responsibility, and it works because our skillsets are complementary and we have the same core values, but our approaches are quite different. That mix is important.

Heidi: I was always very clear I was never going to be a teacher, as both my parents are teachers. But I came to this school for work experience when I was 16 and since then there has been this elastic that keeps pulling me back - I volunteered here, I became a teaching assistant here, I came back here as an NQT, I am still here. There are so many reasons for that: the educational impact, the social impact, the chance to improve lives. The culture. The people.

Simon: I came here as a TA like Heidi, but my connection also started earlier than that. My mum worked here. I used to sit in reception to wait for her and I would see these kids getting ready for the end of the day and I remember thinking what a great bunch of people they were. My journey through education wasn’t a straightforward one. I had to redo a year of sixth form. I was distracted by teenage life. But I found something here.

Heidi: I’ve never been someone who has needed to climb the ladder - it’s not what motivates me. I’ve taken on roles as they have emerged and that others have encouraged me to apply for. But what does drive me is a recognition that I’m lucky enough to have had opportunities in life, to have capabilities, and I think if you can take on a role for your community at whatever level, then you have a responsibility to do so.

Simon: Something that really drives us both in this role is the desire to think harder about complicated things. To have the space and backing to do that is a privilege, and we have that at this school at every level. It’s great for me, as I’m quite dismissive of things I have done successfully but I become overly focused on things that I don’t do well. I want to do them better. I enjoy the challenge of “I can’t do that. So how do I learn how to do it?”

Heidi: Change here happens glacially slowly. Deliberately so. We know that in order for change to be effective, we need to have a very shared process. Not everyone necessarily needs to be on board from the start, nor necessarily agree with the point that is reached. But they do need to understand why things are being done and trust that the process to get to the end point has been thought through and well implemented. I had to learn quickly to slow down my expectations as a result. You can’t go at the pace you want to go if you want things to be and stay successful.

Simon: I refer to myself as a bit of a Labrador. I would be saying, “Oh, it’s shiny, it’s amazing, it’s interesting. Let’s do that!” And then Heidi would say, “Great, how does that fit in the school development plan that’s already full with loads of other things, and that we need to think really, really carefully about?” We’ve both benefitted from that contrast - we now have this natural filtering process where we have our heads up, but we also know really clearly what this school needs.

Heidi: If we look back at our time here, we are proud of the bandwagons we have not jumped on. Simon is very good at keeping us in touch with all of the changes and developments happening in the education and research worlds, and we consider them. But the driver is always what we see in front of us. Sometimes the changes we make are despite, or irrespective of, national changes. Our growth is driven by the needs of the community and what the community requires of us as an organisation, and that is our starting point every single time.

Simon: We struggle with difference in this country, and we particularly struggle with difference associated with people who find learning harder. Look at the data around learning disability outcomes: 94 per cent unemployment, 15 to 20 years premature death, 50 per cent chronic loneliness. This country should be ashamed of these outcomes. Yet they’re not shifting. And that was the motivation for both of us in moving into leadership, I think - asking: how do we shift the dial on things like the experience that our young people grow up to have beyond the school? How do we ensure that the education that we offer leads to a life well lived? 

Heidi: We very rarely have a meaningful difference of opinion. I have ultimate respect for Simon. I know how he works, I know how he thinks, and I know his value system and moral compass. They’re all wired up in exactly the same way as mine, and therefore I have confidence in any decision that he makes, even if I wouldn’t have quite done it as he did. 

Simon: We were aware of the potential that a joint model could be exploited by others playing us off against each other. But we always take our time on decisions and we discuss them, and we are clear about that with everyone. Corridor discussions are the biggest danger here - decision making on the go is rarely a good idea, and with a joint headship could be really dangerous. So we don’t make corridor decisions - and we tell people if they force us into a decision in those moments, the answer will almost certainly be “no”.

Heidi: Everybody’s involved in recruitment because we need everyone to buy into who they think is a good fit. It’s not necessarily about the skills - we can teach the skills. It’s about whether people have the right attributes, and whether people think that person can come into a place like this and be part of this team.

Simon: One of the things I really like about this place is that it is an organisation that embraces its “wrongness”. When you work with kids who learn in unpredictable ways, sometimes they can do things you wouldn’t expect them to be able to do just yet, and other times they’re finding things really hard that you thought they’d fly through. You have to constantly be open to the possibility that you’re not right.

Heidi: If we met in a sociable situation for the first time, we’d probably have a polite conversation, but we wouldn’t necessarily immediately think, “OK, best pals for life.” We have a very, very good relationship, but for both of us it is a work relationship and it is a fantastic one.

Simon: I feel lucky that I’ve had enough experiences where I have thought, “I don’t want to ever make someone feel like that,” but also, “I want the opportunity to make people feel as amazing as that person has made me feel.”

Heidi: I couldn’t imagine doing another headship. I certainly wouldn’t want to do a headship alone, because we’re just able to pick each other up when we need it, celebrate each other when things have gone really well, focus on the areas of the job in which we excel. For both of us, Covid was a really good example of that: a joint headship enabled us to survive when others found it really hard, because the isolation and the loneliness wasn’t quite the same. We always had another person who knew exactly what the other was going through.

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