Chapter 7: The Stories of Head Teachers During the Pandemic

As has been identified in chapters 2 and 5, the work of head teachers is increasingly varied and encompasses a number of far-reaching responsibilities. Here, we consider the testimonies of five primary head teachers from the Midlands of England who all led schools through the pandemic. The stories we captured were based on unstructured interviews with the participants; we simply asked them to reflect on their experiences of leading schools in the pandemic. This allowed them to focus on and develop whichever issues and experiences had most meaning to them. Where appropriate we did ask supplementary questions which emerged from their narratives, but additional questions were only asked for clarification and on occasion to stimulate greater depth in their reflections. However, at no point did we lead the participants to cover areas they had not identified themselves, resulting in an interesting variety of issues being covered across the interviews. The participants were contacted through a gatekeeper, a senior leader in a multi-academy trust, meaning that all the participants were primary head teachers working within a similar organisational context.