ISAMBARD Community School will spend next month actively recruiting for a new headteacher.

Last summer, Rachael Mattey, who had been leading the school for eight years, retired from her position, leaving Sue Banks to step into the breach as acting head while the board of governors initiated the recruitment process.

But next month the school intends to spend March recruiting more actively, since it is this time of year that is considered to be the best time to recruit for new heads.

In a statement posted on the school’s Facebook page last week, a spokesman from the school said: “As you may be aware our headteacher for the last eight years retired at the end of the last school year.

“Since September, Mrs Banks has been promoted to acting headteacher while the governors go through the process of recruiting a new headteacher.

“At the time the governors made the decision to not move into recruitment immediately, the nature of education means that staff recruitment is very seasonal (there are good and bad times to recruit).

“The governors wanted to ensure that the school was able to attract the best range of candidates.

“March is considered the best time to recruit and so the school has now launched adverts in key online publications offering candidates to apply for the position with a view to starting in September 2015.

“There will now be a period of time while we allow candidates to prepare submissions.

“We hope to interview a short list of candidates in March.

“In the meantime Kevin Gray, chair of governors, would like to make it clear that the existing leadership team (led by Mrs Banks) continues to have the full support of the governing body who feel that they are doing an excellent job at moving the school forward.

“As part of the recruitment process schools create a recruitment pack that tells candidates about the school and allows them to start to gather information in preparation for their submission and possible interview.

“We thought that parents might like to see this and so we have made the pack available on the website.

“We will continue to keep you informed of progress over the next few weeks.”

People can ask questions by emailing chair@isambard.swindon.sch.uk.

You can also download the headteacher recruitment pack at www.isambard.swindon.sch.uk/_files/ht_recruitment_pack_v5.pdf.