“Getting ready for all the changes to tests in 2008 as it will make a difference at key stage 3 key stage 4 and post-16. Teachers need to be prepared because they are going to have to rewrite their schemes of work.”

Luke Burton, head of Leytonstone business and enterprise specialist school said: “The past year’s personal challenge has been getting my work-life balance right. Every Child Matters is the challenge for the year ahead.

We’ll be working with different agencies who have very different ways of working.”

Deborah Coslett, head of Hayesbrook school in Kent: “When our value-added Panda came through it was a work of fiction. But the biggest challenge is we’ve taken on a second specialism in vocational courses on top of being a sports college, so we are going to work with another school to share the vocational courses we offer.”

Bernard Trafford, head of the fee-charging Wolverhampton grammar:

“Regulations in the maintained sector have begun to affect us. Take TLRs (teaching and learning responsibility points). Some independent heads who thought they paid well above the state sector have found they’ve been caught up and overtaken.”

Indu Bedi, assistant head of the Lister school in Newham, London: “Our school’s being rebuilt through the Building Schools for the Future programme. It’s going to be a steep learning curve because we are one of the first in London and all the building is happening on the site where we’re teaching.”

Dorian Williams, head of Ysgol Dyffrin Teifi, Ceredigion, Wales: “Figuring out how to give pupils the wider 14 to 19 curriculum schools in Wales should be providing. We’re a rural school so it makes it more difficult to share courses. I won’t be worrying about the education Bill - it’s on a different planet from us.”