Deputy Headteacher (DOS) skills and qualifications

Curriculum leadership

• Understanding the curriculum and syllabuses across subjects, not only your own.
• Planning and checking schemes of work and lesson preparation.
• Monitoring syllabus coverage through the term and organising catch-up where needed.
• Supporting teachers to plan lessons that build competences rather than only cover content.

Supervision and teacher support

Lesson observation is the core skill: watching a lesson against clear criteria, recording what happened, and giving feedback that a teacher can act on without feeling attacked. Alongside it come checking learner exercise books, reviewing preparation and following up agreed improvements. Good supervision is regular, fair and documented.

Assessment and data

The post carries responsibility for assessment quality: setting and moderating tests, ensuring consistent marking, analysing results by subject and class, and using what the analysis shows to change teaching. Reporting to parents and to district authorities accurately and on time is part of the same skill.

Teacher development

Deputies identify professional development needs from observation and results, arrange school-based sessions, mentor new teachers and encourage colleagues to learn from each other. The skill is matching the support to the real need rather than organising training for its own sake.

Organisation

Timetabling, examination scheduling, records of marks and attendance, and the academic calendar all sit with this post. Panels look for someone systematic, who keeps records that can be checked and who plans early enough to avoid crises.

Communication and fairness

A deputy works with teachers, learners, parents, the headteacher and district officials. Listening well, explaining decisions clearly, handling complaints fairly and keeping confidences are all essential. Colleagues must believe the same standards apply to everyone, including the deputy.

Judgement about when to escalate

Much of this post is deciding what to handle yourself and what belongs with the headteacher. Escalating everything makes you look unable to lead; escalating nothing leaves the head uninformed about something they are accountable for. The working rule most deputies settle on is to handle the routine, act on the urgent and inform immediately afterwards, and consult in advance on anything involving money, staff discipline, or a parent likely to take the matter further.

Persistence with routine work

The academic machinery of a school runs on small tasks done repeatedly: books checked, coverage recorded, marks collected, observations written up. None of it is difficult, and all of it slips the moment nobody follows up. Panels look for a candidate who can keep an unglamorous system running through a busy term.