Head of Department Interview Questions: How to Show Your Leadership

A Head of Department interview asks you to connect strong classroom practice with the work of a whole team. You may need to explain curriculum decisions, support colleagues, interpret assessment information and make sensible choices about limited time.

Prepare examples that make your contribution clear. What did you notice? What did you change? How did colleagues contribute? What evidence helped you judge the result?

1. What is your vision for the subject?

Explain what you want pupils to learn and experience across the key stages. Include the knowledge, disciplinary thinking and opportunities that make the subject valuable.

Connect your answer to the school’s published curriculum, while recognising that you do not yet know the department’s full context. Avoid arriving with a replacement curriculum based on a brief website visit.

2. How would you evaluate the current curriculum?

Describe how you would examine sequencing, pupils’ work, assessment tasks and colleagues’ experience. You might trace one important concept through several year groups to see how understanding develops.

A useful answer explains how you would distinguish a curriculum gap from an issue with teaching, attendance or assessment design. Each would call for a different response.

3. What would you do if examination outcomes declined?

Begin by checking what the information can reliably show. Consider cohort size, prior attainment, attendance, question-level patterns and evidence from lessons and work.

Then identify a manageable action. For example, if pupils know subject content but struggle to construct explanations, you might agree common modelling approaches and review a small sample of subsequent work.

Do not promise a particular results increase without understanding the starting point.

4. How would you support a colleague whose teaching needs improvement?

Explain how you would establish the concern, listen to the colleague and agree a specific area for development. Describe the modelling, coaching or resources you would offer and when you would review progress.

Distinguish developmental support from formal processes, which must follow the school’s policies and involve the appropriate leaders. Respectful leadership still requires clear expectations.

5. How would you lead a colleague who disagrees with you?

Choose an example where you listened carefully and made a decision for a clear reason. A disagreement about assessment frequency, for instance, may reveal a legitimate concern about workload or the usefulness of the information collected.

Explain what changed after the discussion. If you retained your original decision, describe how you communicated the reasoning and supported implementation.

6. How would you make the subject accessible to all pupils?

Discuss ambitious curriculum access alongside appropriate adjustments and specialist advice. Give a subject-specific example: supporting vocabulary in science, reducing unnecessary transcription in history or modelling a process in design and technology.

Explain how you would check that support helps pupils learn and participate, rather than assume a particular resource suits everyone with the same label.

7. How would you manage departmental workload?

Describe how you would prioritise shared planning, purposeful assessment and useful meetings. Give an example of work you stopped or simplified, including how you checked that the change did not create extra work elsewhere.

Be realistic about your own teaching commitment. Leadership plans need time and a workable division of responsibilities.

8. How would you use the department’s budget?

Connect spending to curriculum needs, safety and access. Explain how you would compare options, consult colleagues and review use of resources already available.

For practical subjects, prepare to discuss the relevant safety responsibilities and specialist support for your setting.

9. What would your first term look like?

Offer a provisional sequence: listen and understand, agree a small number of priorities, implement carefully, then review. Say what you would need to learn before committing to change.

Prepare for tasks as well as questions

You may be given assessment information, asked to review pupils’ work or invited to present a department improvement plan. Separate observation from inference and explain what further information you would seek.

Finish by asking about leadership time, line management, staffing and the department’s current priorities. These details will help you assess whether the role offers the support needed to lead well.

Find your next middle leadership opportunity with Aston Education.