Headteacher CV Examples & Writing Guide

This is a two-page CV for a serving secondary headteacher applying for a larger school or a trust-level role. The name and schools are made up. Notice that every job line starts with the size of the school, because a selection panel's first question is always "how big and what kind".

Headteacher appointments usually start with shortlisting by governors or trustees, often advised by the trust CEO or an education adviser, then a one- or two-day selection process that can include a student panel, staff interviews, tasks and a presentation. Four things decide whether you are shortlisted.

• Scale and school type. Primary, secondary, all-through, special school, alternative provision, academy or maintained, faith or grammar. Number on roll, staff size, pupil premium percentage, EAL and SEND percentages. A 300-pupil primary head and a 2,000-student secondary head are doing different jobs.
• Your leadership preparation. There is no headteacher licence in England, but panels look for QTS, senior leadership experience and often the NPQH. Wales, Scotland and Northern Ireland have their own requirements, so check them if you are applying there.
• Results with numbers. GCSE, A-level or KS2 outcomes, Progress 8, attendance, suspensions, staff retention. Two or three real movements beat a page of responsibilities.
• How you treat adults. Trusts and governing bodies lose headteachers over staff turnover and community trust, not over exam results. Teacher retention, recruitment, mentoring and family engagement all belong on the page.

“Every headteacher applicant tells me they are a servant leader with a passion for kids. Nobody applies saying the opposite. What I actually read is the number on roll, the pupil premium percentage, and whether the numbers moved while you were in the building. Save the philosophy for the supporting statement.”

There is no headteacher licence in England. What panels look for is QTS, a record of senior leadership and, usually, a national professional qualification: the NPQH for headship or the NPQSL for senior leadership. Wales, Scotland and Northern Ireland set their own leadership requirements, so check the official guidance for the nation you are applying in.

• The usual path is QTS and several years of classroom teaching, then middle leadership as a head of department or head of year, then senior leadership as an assistant or deputy head, often with the NPQSL and then the NPQH.
• The NPQH is no longer mandatory for headteachers in England, but many trusts and governing bodies list it as desirable or essential. If you are part-way through, say so with the expected completion date.
• Put qualifications above education if you already hold them, because a shortlisting panel looks for them first.
• A doctorate (EdD or PhD) is not required to be a headteacher, but it can matter for trust-level roles and for larger secondary schools. If you have one, put the letters after your name.
• Moving between UK nations or from abroad? Add a line like "QTS (England), 2009; GTCS registration application submitted September 2026". Silence on this question is what gets a strong CV rejected.
• The DfE's Headteachers' Standards are the common frame for headship in England. It is fine to reference them once when describing your appraisal or improvement work, but do not build the whole CV around the standards.

Four or five lines at the top. Say the phase you lead, the size, your qualifications, and two results with numbers. No adjectives about your character.

The most common problem on headteacher CVs is a list of things every head does. Everyone line-manages staff, manages budgets and communicates with parents. Write what changed on your watch and by how much.

Group them so a panel can see the teaching and learning side and the operational side at once. Both come up in the selection process.

• Teaching and learning: teacher coaching cycles, learning walks and feedback, curriculum design and sequencing, common assessments, collaborative planning, literacy and maths intervention, appraisal.
• Data: GCSE, A-level and KS2 outcomes, Progress 8, attendance and behaviour analysis, early warning indicators, school improvement planning, Ofsted inspection preparation and trust accountability reporting.
• Operations: timetabling, staffing structures, the school budget and pupil premium strategy, premises and health and safety, transport and catering contracts, exams administration.
• People: recruitment and interview panels, ECT induction and mentoring, appraisal and capability procedures, working with unions, difficult conversations and documentation.
• Students and families: safeguarding, behaviour and attendance systems, restorative practice, SEND and EHCP processes, EAL provision, family engagement, critical incident planning.
• Systems: SIMS, Arbor or Bromcom, CPOMS or MyConcern, Google Workspace for Education or Microsoft 365, survey platforms, DfE data returns such as the school census.

Cut words like visionary, dynamic and passionate. A panel reads them as filler, and the space is better spent on the number of teachers you line-managed.

If you have never held the top job, your CV has to answer one question: have you already done headteacher work under a different title? Build the page around evidence that you have.

1. 1Lead every deputy or assistant head bullet with the system you owned, not the tasks you helped with: the timetable, the behaviour system, the exams calendar, SEND provision.
2. 2Show budget and recruitment experience even if it was partial: sat on interview panels, wrote the pupil premium strategy, managed a departmental budget of a certain size.
3. 3Name your leadership preparation: the NPQSL or NPQH, a trust or local authority aspiring heads programme, a headship mentoring scheme, with the year completed.
4. 4Add a short "school improvement results" block near the top with three numbers you personally moved, so the panel does not have to hunt for them.
5. 5Keep at least one line of classroom credibility: subject, key stages and years taught. Teachers on the staff panel look for it.
6. 6In the supporting statement, not the CV, address the obvious question about why you are ready for the whole school.

Two pages is right for a headteacher. One page hides the scale of your schools, three pages reads as padding. Most headship applications go through the trust's or local authority's own application form, an online recruitment system or the DfE's Teaching Vacancies service, so keep the CV plain: one column, standard headings, no photo, no graphics.

• Order: contact, personal statement, qualifications, leadership experience, teaching experience, education, selected results or wider service. Qualifications go high.
• Schools usually ask for a full pack: application form, a supporting statement against the person specification, a CV where accepted, referees (usually including your current employer), and sometimes a written task. Do not put referee details on the CV itself; they belong on the form.
• Mirror the job advert's own words: school improvement, curriculum, teaching and learning, behaviour and attendance, safeguarding, staff development, appraisal, pupil premium, SEND, EAL, timetabling, family engagement, data-informed decision making, Ofsted.
• Spell out the school type and phase in each entry so an automated search matches: "11–18 academy", "two-form-entry primary", "maintained secondary school".
• UK conventions: no photo, no date of birth, no marital status, no personal details beyond your contact line. International schools abroad may ask for a CV with a photo instead, so read that job advert carefully.
• File name: anthony-cardoza-headteacher-cv.pdf.

The equivalent role in the US is school principal, and applications there use a two-page resume and a state administrator licence. If you are applying in the UK, keep the CV and supporting statement format on this page.