The County Council, like governing bodies, has to walk a fine line. The responsibility of the authority is both structural, providing governance frameworks, guidance and standards to support governing bodies to hold leaders to account whilst also being relational, seeking to ensure that headteachers feel valued, listened to and supported. 

There are key areas that the County Council has a particular role to play, including: 

Strategic Governance Support 

The County Council has a role in supporting governance in maintained schools, seeking to help ensure that governance is effective, respectful of boundaries, and supportive of headteachers. Good governance reduces stress by clarifying roles and responsibilities, avoids micromanagement, fosters trust as well as enabling courageous conversations. We are currently reviewing and refreshing a number of governor courses and are currently developing a new offer for governors on headteacher professional resilience. 

Headteacher Appraisal  

The county council through supporting Headteacher Appraisal processes with external advisers, is in a unique place to prompt governing bodies in relation to professional resilience discussions. All staff from Hampshire Improvement and Advisory Service (HIAS) acting as external adviser had training in early autumn in relation to the appraisal policy changes and this included a focus on supporting governors to have dialogue on headteacher professional resilience as part of appraisal. 

Facilitating space and time through events to discuss professional resilience 

In recent years the County Council, through HIAS and EPS have offered sessions for leaders focused on Headteacher professional resilience. In 2024, a conference brought together a number of speakers to develop understanding and encourage dialogue in relation to professional coaching and supervision as well as understanding burnout. This was followed up in early 2025 with a workshop on psychological flexibility. In January 2026, a further workshop will focus on anxiety, how it can impact and tools and resources to support. 

Offering supervision, coaching support and work discussion groups 

The Education Psychology Service offers supervision, coaching and work discussion groups to support headteachers with their professional resilience and development. To find out more, please visit: Staff support and development | Educational psychology | Hampshire County Council  

Championing reflective practices  

When considering wellbeing and resilience, schools must consider their own local approaches and practices and whether the value they add is worth the workload they may create and/or whether other practices can be discontinued or altered so that an overall workload increase can be minimised by any new approach or initiative being introduced. Leaders can engage with their HIAS officers to discuss these issues and use colleagues to provide a sounding board or critical challenge to their thinking. 

A focus on complaints and managing crisis situations  

We are incredibly mindful of the fact that a crisis situation or a significant complaint where individuals are repetitively not following the appropriate processes or taking processes inappropriately outside of the school can have a significant impact on leaders and school staff. Whilst it is challenging due to the legal frameworks surrounding schools, work is underway, in partnership with HIAS, EPS, Legal and Communications and Engagement on a number of strands, including a new “Zero Tolerance” policy to seek to support schools to be clearer with complainants about the potential consequences of their behaviour. This will include a route, in some circumstances, for Governing Bodies, to seek support from the County Council to write to complainants to support the school’s position on a matter.  

Supporting peer engagement and sharing of practice 

Whether through your district or area headteacher meetings or other means, HIAS are keen to ensure collective dialogue and sharing of practice. To support sharing, we are currently developing the Leadership Moodle further and will be encouraging leaders to share appropriate resources, think pieces or exemplar documents which may be of interest for other leaders. 

Development of new resources 

Work is currently underway by EPS to develop a new section of the Manual of Personnel Practice, focused on Managing Culture and Climate. This will include many new resources including but not limited to guidance on holding difficult conversations; guidance on stress risk assessment and how to apply it at an individual, team and whole school level and a model wellbeing policy.