EXCLUSIVE: Croydon’s last senior school to have survived academisation has spent the past six months recruiting for a new headteacher, without success. By our education correspondent, GENE BRODIE
Head hunters: Archbishop Tenison’s is the last secondary in Croydon that is not run by an academy
Pupils and parents of Archbishop Tenison’s CofE High School are setting off for their long summer break today with no idea who will be their next headteacher.
Richard Parrish is retiring after 21 years as the historic school’s headteacher. Parrish’s impending retirement was hardly a secret or unpredictable, and he confirmed it to the governors in January. But after a recruitment search that has been going on all year, the school’s governors have been unable to identify a suitable replacement.
Following the recent closures of two other church-linked secondaries – St Andrew’s and Virgo Fidelis – Tenison’s is now the last remaining secondary school in the borough subject to any degree of oversight by Croydon Council.
All Croydon’s other state secondary schools have converted to academies or free schools, many coming under Oasis or Harris Foundation.
Final day: Richard Parrish has been headteacher at Tenison’s for 21 years
St Andrew’s (which closed in 2020) and Virgo Fidelis (2021) were both voluntary-aided schools, the same status as Tenison’s, on Selborne Road, where the Southwark Diocese of the Church of England contributes to building costs and holds significant influence in the school’s administration.
According to school insiders, it is the school’s Church of England association which has seen the recruitment of a headteacher stall.
“They’ve had plenty of qualified applicants,” a source told Inside Croydon. “But all the best ones have been Catholic.”
Another sticking point has been the somewhat parsimonious salary on offer for the responsibilities of managing the five-form entry, 800-pupil school, with a Sixth Form, and more than 50 teaching staff. Job ads for a new head that appeared earlier this year offered a salary of less than £108,000 – well below the rate of pay to be found in inner London schools, or in academies.
Parsimonious: how the Tenison’s job ad appears in the Times Education Supplement
Another round of recruitment ads, form-filling and interviews, will get underway in September, the governors say.
There’s no suggestion that the school might close for want of a headteacher, and the governors laid out the position – with the appointment of interim heads and deputies – in a letter to parents this month. Oddly, the letter appeared as signed by Richard Parrish).
“After two national advertisements, several tours of the school and a good level of interest in the opportunity to become headteacher of Archbishop Tenison’s, we received a good number of applications, held one round of interviews in March and then set up a second round in May,” the letter said.
“As we have not yet found the person we are looking for, we have now decided to advertise again after the summer.
“It is so important to all of us as governors to appoint the right headteacher for this school.”
The school will have two interim heads from September, current deputy headteachers Bolanie Akanho and Eliezer Koramoa. “Other senior teaching staff have also agreed to take on additional responsibilities to make this work,” the governors state, promising to advise how this might be arranged before the end of summer term.
The school’s most recent Ofsted inspection was in April this year when it achieved the expected standards across all categories, with the exception of “Attendance and behaviour”, which was flagged as “Needs attention”.
The inspectors’ report says: “In all year groups, there are some pupils who do not attend school regularly enough. As a result, these pupils miss important learning as well as opportunities to take part in school activities that build confidence and resilience…
“Leaders have established high expectations for how all members of the school community should behave… Pupils typically meet these expectations. Classrooms are calm and purposeful, creating a positive environment in which pupils are ready and supported to learn. Most pupils are attentive and fully engaged in their work.”
Tenison’s is another Croydon school that traces its history back to a benevolent Archbishop of Canterbury, and an original site along North End where the Whitgift Centre stands today.
This one was founded by Thomas Tenison in 1714, when it provided for “ten poor boys and ten poor girls”. Its present, third site, in Park Hill has been the school’s home since 1959.
After 312 years, Tenison’s is thought to be the oldest surviving continuously co-educational school in the world.
Read more: ‘No longer viable’: council sounds death knell for Virgo Fidelis
Read more: Just 34 children applied to start at St Andrew’s this September
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