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The Head of Year Handover: What the Next Person Actually Needs

What to include, and leave out, when handing a year group to the next Head of Year, with a free end-of-year handover checklist.

Most Head of Year handovers fall into one of two traps.

The first is a spreadsheet of names, attendance percentages and a few RAG colours.

It is quick to produce, but tells the incoming HOY little they could not find on the school system.

The second is a long document containing everything the outgoing HOY can remember about every student, parent and incident.

It takes hours to write, overwhelms the reader and quickly becomes out of date.

A useful handover sits between the two.

It gives the next person the context they need to act well in September, without duplicating records or creating another place for sensitive information to live.

This guide works whether you are handing the cohort to another colleague, moving schools, progressing with your year group or preparing for a new Head of Year to take over.

The purpose of a good handover A year group has a character that cannot be reduced to percentages.

It has routines, relationships, pressure points and students whose progress depends on adults remembering what has worked.

When that knowledge disappears, the incoming HOY spends the first half term rebuilding it.

Parents repeat conversations they thought the school already understood.

Tutors are unsure which small changes matter.

An intervention that was beginning to work can quietly stop.

The purpose of a handover is not to transfer every fact you know.

It is to help the next person answer four questions: - What is this cohort like now? - Who or what needs attention first? - What is already working and should continue? - What remains unfinished?

If your handover answers those questions clearly, the incoming HOY is continuing the work rather than starting from zero.

Start with the shape of the cohort Begin with a short overview that can be read in two minutes.