Leadership search, handled quietly.
Deputy principals, principals, heads of school and senior leadership. The searches where discretion matters more than speed, run personally from first conversation to signed contract.
A leadership appointment is a governance decision, not a vacancy.
The candidates worth having are almost never applying to ads, and the good ones will not move if their name starts circulating. They move when someone they trust brings them something worth moving for. So this practice runs leadership search research-led and approach-based, confidential on both sides until it should not be.
That means no advertising unless the board wants it, and no candidate list shared outside the appointing group.
How a search runs.
No two leadership searches are the same, so no two are run the same way. Every search is built around your school and the specific role, and the proposal at step two sets out how yours will run.
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The brief
With the principal, the board or the council, whoever owns the decision. What the school needs this leader to do in three years, not just what the last one did. Written up and agreed with you before the search begins.
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The proposal
A written proposal before the search starts: how it will be run, what happens at each stage, and the timeframe for each one. You know what to expect and when, and the search is run to what was agreed.
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The map
A researched view of who is out there, including the people who are not looking. Every name is assessed against your brief before it goes any further, so the list narrows on evidence rather than on who happens to be available. The map goes to the appointing group and nowhere else.
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The approach
Only the people who genuinely match the brief are approached, and each of them personally. Quiet, one conversation at a time. No mass mailouts, no advertising on LinkedIn, and the school is not named until a candidate is serious and the school has agreed to be.
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The appointment
A calibrated shortlist with written rationale for each name, a managed interview process, supported negotiation, and a check-in at the end of term one.
Thinking about your next chapter?
If you are a school leader considering a move, that conversation stays between us. No CV in circulation, no name on a list, and nothing that starts your name moving around the sector before you are ready.
I will tell you what is coming up before it is public, and if the honest answer is that nothing suits you this year, that is what you will hear.
Book a confidential conversation.
Whether you are appointing or considering a move, the first conversation costs nothing and commits you to nothing.