Strategic Recruitment, Retention & Onboarding for School Leaders

Course Code: T0406 £289.00

ABOUT THIS COURSE

This brand-new practical, evidence-informed course is designed for school leaders, HR leads, governors, and trust central teams who are responsible for recruiting and retaining high-quality staff in an increasingly competitive landscape. With almost 40,000 teachers leaving the profession in the last year alone and early-career attrition at crisis levels, it has never been more important to reimagine how we attract, welcome, and support new staff.   The course explores every stage of the employee journey, from your initial job advert to the first weeks in role, highlighting the small changes that can make a big impact. Delegates will leave with actionable strategies, inspiring examples, and practical resources to improve staff recruitment, retention, and long-term satisfaction.

BENEFITS OF ATTENDING

  • Understand the latest data on the teacher recruitment and retention crisis
  • Explore how to create an outstanding applicant experience that showcases your school’s culture and values
  • Learn how to design inclusive, transparent, and compelling applicant packs
  • Identify key elements of a positive interview and onboarding process
  • Reduce early-career attrition through strong induction and early support
  • Build a confident, consistent approach to hiring and retaining top talent

WHO SHOULD ATTEND

  • Headteachers
  • School Leaders
  • HR Leads
  • Governors
  • Trust Central Teams 

PROGRAMME

10.00am: Welcome and the National Picture
  • The recruitment and retention challenge: what the DfE and research tell us
  • Explore key trends in teacher workload, job satisfaction, and attrition rates
  • The powerful connection between onboarding, culture, and long-term retention
11.00am: Break
11.15am: Attracting the Right People: Your Applicant Pack & Promotion
  • Key components of a compelling and effective applicant pack
  • Warmth, transparency, and clarity: designing for impact
  • The power of student and staff voice
  • Improving your reach: how your team can act as recruitment ambassadors
  • Rethink job descriptions and person specs to make them inclusive, purposeful, and welcoming
12.15pm: Lunch
1.15pm: Making a Strong First Impression: Interview & Communication Strategy
  • Crafting a thoughtful, warm, and clear interview invite
  • Creating a candidate-focused experience: from welcome chats to flexibility
  • Communicate expectations, structure, and values with consistency and care
  • Managing nerves, fairness, and reasonable adjustments
  • Empowering leaders to be consistent, inclusive interviewers
2.15pm: Break
2.30pm: Onboarding & Induction: Building Belonging from Day One
  • Redefine onboarding: focus on culture-building, not just compliance
  • Key milestones and messages for the first month, term, and year
  • Induction day design: structure, welcome, mission, and networking
  • Clarify line manager and mentor responsibilities to provide ongoing support
  • Early career teachers: high-risk, high-return - what they need to thrive, and stay
3.30pm: Depart
Leadership - Code: T0406

Strategic Recruitment, Retention & Onboarding for School Leaders
Mike Leaman

Course Leader

Mike Leaman is an experienced educational consultant, career coach, former Deputy Headteacher, and national CPD leader. With over a decade of leadership experience in schools, including strategic responsibility for over 150 staff, Mike brings deep insight into the practical and cultural challenges facing school teams today.

Throughout his career, Mike has led successful whole-school improvement strategies, redesigned workload systems, and introduced staff development programmes that improved retention, morale, and outcomes.

Mike draws on his career coaching with hundreds of school leaders and teachers across the UK to help leadership teams build psychologically safe environments, foster coaching cultures, and implement sustainable wellbeing strategies. Known for his balance of warmth, challenge, and clarity, Mike's sessions are praised for being highly relevant, research-informed, and immediately actionable.

 

 

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Course Brochure

Leadership 2