Your first 90 days as a head of department: what to do, week by week

The appointment is confirmed. You are the new head of department, perhaps in a team you have taught alongside for years, perhaps in a school you have never seen. Everyone will be watching your first moves, and you will feel pressure to change things quickly to show you were the right choice.

Resist that pressure, at least for a few weeks. The leaders I have seen succeed in this role spend their first month learning, their second month setting expectations and their third month leading one visible improvement. This is the plan I would give any new head of department, week by week.

What should you aim for in your first 90 days?

By the end of your first term, aim to have three things in place: relationships of trust with each person in your team, a clear and honest picture of how the department is doing, and one improvement that people can see is working. Everything below serves those three goals.

What should you do before day one?

If you can, meet your line manager before you start and ask three questions. What does the school most need from this department? What are the known issues? How will my success be judged? Write the answers down. They are your first reference point.

Read what already exists: the department improvement plan, recent results, the scheme of work and any review reports. Do not form conclusions yet. Just note the questions they raise.

Weeks 1 and 2: how do you start listening?

Hold a short, one to one conversation with every member of your team. Ask the same questions each time: What is working well here? What gets in the way of your teaching? What would you change if you were in my position? What do you need from me?

Listen far more than you speak, and do not promise changes on the spot. If you were promoted from within the team, say openly that your role has changed and that you want to keep the relationships that matter. People appreciate honesty about the awkwardness.

Keep notes, and look for the themes that come up again and again. Those themes are often more reliable than any data.

Make time for the people around the department too. Introduce yourself to the leaders you will work with most, such as the head of year, the special educational needs co-ordinator and the colleague who manages the timetable. A short, friendly conversation now makes every later request easier.

Weeks 3 and 4: what should you look at first?

Now look at the evidence. Visit lessons with a learning focus rather than a judging one, and tell colleagues that is what you are doing. Look at a sample of students’ books or work across classes. Ask a small group of students what learning in the subject is like for them. Review assessment data with an eye for patterns rather than individuals.

By the end of week four, you should be able to write one page that answers two questions: what does this department do well, and what are the two or three things that would most improve learning for students? Share it with your line manager before you share it with the team.

Weeks 5 and 6: how do you set expectations?

This is the point to start shaping how the team works. Use a department meeting to share what you have learned, including the strengths, and to agree a small number of shared expectations. Keep them practical: how meetings will run, how marking and feedback will work, how decisions will be made and recorded.

Make your meetings different from the start. End every agenda item with a decision, a named owner and a deadline, and begin the next meeting by reviewing those commitments. Few things build confidence in a new leader faster than meetings that actually lead to action.

Weeks 7 and 8: what is your first visible improvement?

Choose one improvement from your one page summary that is important, achievable within a few weeks and visible to the team. It might be a shared approach to the start of lessons, a common assessment for a key unit, or a simpler way of sharing resources.

Plan it with the team rather than for them. Agree what success will look like, who will do what and when you will review it. Then protect the time it needs. A small improvement that works is worth far more than an ambitious one that fades by half term.

Weeks 9 and 10: how do you check it is working?

Look at the evidence together. Visit a few lessons, look at student work, ask students what has changed. Share what you find honestly, including what has not worked. Thank people by name for specific contributions.

This is also a good moment to hold a second round of short one to ones. Ask what is easier now, what is still in the way and what support people need. You will learn a great deal from how the answers have changed since week one.

Weeks 11 to 13: how do you plan the next term?

Use everything you have gathered to draft a focused department improvement plan for the rest of the year. Keep it to a small number of priorities, each with clear actions, owners, timescales and success criteria. Share the draft with the team and invite challenge before you finalise it with your line manager.

Finally, reflect on your own leadership. What has gone well? What would you do differently? What do you need to learn next? Write it down. It will be invaluable when you look back at the end of the year.

What mistakes should new heads of department avoid?

Changing everything in the first fortnight. It signals that you think nothing worked before you arrived.

Trying to stay one of the team. You can stay warm and approachable while accepting that your role is different.

Avoiding the difficult conversation. If there is a real concern, address it early, privately and fairly. Delay usually makes it harder.

Doing everything yourself. Delegating well develops your team and protects your time. Holding on to every task does neither.

Forgetting your own teaching. Your classes still matter, and colleagues notice when a leader’s own lessons slip. Protect your planning time as carefully as you protect theirs.

Leading alone. Find someone outside the department to talk to, whether that is another head of department, a mentor or your line manager. Middle leadership can feel isolated, and a trusted sounding board makes better decisions much more likely.

Ninety days will not make you an expert leader. They can give you trust, clarity and a first success to build on, which is exactly what a strong start needs.

Related reading: Nobody tells you how lonely middle leadership is and How to run a department meeting people actually value.

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