THE chair of governors of a school which is set to be without a permanent, full-time headteacher for the rest of the year has explained to parents why a new leader will not start until January 2017.

Jane Pratt told parents of Brighton Hill Community School that the governing body has now met with the local authority and agreed the advert and process for the appointment of a headteacher.

As previously reported in The Gazette, the current headteacher Charlie Currie announced in February that he had decided to retire at the end of the school year in August, but has been off for “personal reasons” since the start of this term.

Paul Nicholson, who is headteacher at The Westgate School in Winchester, has taken over as acting interim headteacher, splitting his time between the two schools.

Mr Currie told parents that governors would be working to appoint a replacement to start in September.

But Mrs Pratt has now explained that this was not possible.

She said: “We are looking to appoint someone to start in January, 2017 rather than September 2016 because any successful candidate has to give a full term’s notice to their current employer. Mr Currie informed us of his intention to retire at the end of February and there only remained four weeks before the Easter holidays. The recruitment timeline for headship is at least six weeks so it was not possible to appoint before Easter to allow someone to resign for a September start. Therefore we have until the end of this term to recruit a head who can start in January 2017.”

  • Are you a parent of Brighton Hill? What do you think about this? Let us know by emailing newsdesk@basingstokegazette.co.uk or commenting below.