Rapid Response 

Denbigh High School, Luton

The background: Denbigh High School is a highly successful school working in a challenging environment. The school has established a strong leadership team and is committed to developing its leaders by creating opportunities for them to develop their roles and take on acting up and internal secondment opportunities as they arise.

The challenge: In 2006/7, the school needed to supplement its leadership capacity on a temporary basis to support leaders within the school who were taking on wider roles as part of their career development.

The solution: Whilst the school had initially thought about making some fixed term permanent appointments, the Navigate team suggested consideration of interim management options. The advantage of this approach would be complete flexibility, using an interim only for the time required with no ongoing employment commitment, as well as the ability to move much more swiftly than permanent recruitment processes allow. Navigate put forward a number of interim candidates for the school to consider within a few days of taking a brief.  

The result: Denbigh was able to appoint an interim Associate Headteacher to meet their need – and subsequently appointed a curriculum developer and timetabling specialist on a similar basis to complete specific projects.

Testimonial: “We have been delighted by Navigate’s ability to provide us with people who have quickly and significantly increased our leadership capacity by bringing a wealth of experience, expertise and practical ideas to the team and the school”.