Read the headteacher's report

Written for: School governors.

Your headteacher can prepare their termly report to governors in Student Radar and issue it to you. Once it’s issued, you can read it in Student Radar and download a copy. An issued report is a fixed record of what the board was told: it can’t be changed afterwards.

You can read only the reports that have been issued to you. Drafts stay with the headteacher and senior leaders until they’re issued.

Open a report

1. In the sidebar, open Leadership, then Strategy & assurance.
2. Choose Headteacher’s Report.
3. Under Issued reports shared with you, click the report you want. Each one shows its title and its issued version number.

The buttons for creating reports, such as Generate report, are greyed out. They’re for the headteacher and senior leaders.

Issuing a report doesn’t send you a message. Your headteacher or clerk will usually tell you when a report is ready, for example before a board meeting.

Read the report

The report opens ready to read. Under its title you’ll see the reporting period, the audience and the issued version. The top of the report says “This issued report is an immutable record.”

Down the left is the report outline. Start with Executive commentary, the headteacher’s overview, then click each section in turn, such as Attendance or Safeguarding. Only the sections included in this report are listed. A ✓ shows that the section was reviewed before the report was issued.

Each section can include:

• Figures: a table of approved whole-school figures, with the period and method behind each one. Only a short list of whole-school percentages appears here, such as attendance and persistent absence. Counts, sensitive breakdowns and figures based on small groups are left out, so that individual pupils can’t be identified.
• Commentary: what the headteacher, or a colleague they asked, wrote about the section.
• Decision / challenge requested: anything the headteacher is asking the board to decide or challenge. Note these for your meeting.
• Evidence and provenance: notes about evidence that isn’t held in Student Radar, with the date it was observed.

The commentary is written by school leaders and reviewed before the report is issued. Use it, and the figures, as the starting point for your questions to the headteacher.

When you’ve finished, click All reports to go back to the list.

Download a copy

Open the report and click:

• PDF or Word for the full report
• Executive summary for a short version

Store and share downloads in line with your school’s arrangements for governor papers. They contain information about the school that isn’t public.

Corrected reports

If the school needs to correct a report after issuing it, the headteacher issues a corrected edition. It appears in your list as a new issued version. The earlier version stays as it was, so you can always see what the board was originally told.

If something doesn’t work

What you see	What to do
“No issued reports have been shared with you yet.”	No report has been issued to you yet. Ask your headteacher or clerk when it will be shared. They need to choose you as a recipient when they issue it.
A report you expected isn’t in the list	It may not have been issued yet, or you weren’t chosen as a recipient. Ask the headteacher to check.
“This report is unavailable for your current account and school.”	The report wasn’t issued to you, or you’re signed in to a different school. Check the school name at the top of the screen, then ask the headteacher if it’s right.
“Reports could not be loaded.”	Reload the page. If it keeps happening, wait a few minutes and try again.
Headteacher’s Report shows No access in the menu	Your account doesn’t have access to the report page. Ask your school’s Student Radar administrator.

For more about what governors can open, see What governors can see in Student Radar. To find out how the headteacher prepares and issues the report, see Prepare the headteacher’s report for governors.