In a school, SLT stands for senior leadership team. It’s the small group who run the school day to day and set its direction: the headteacher, the deputy and assistant heads, and often the school business manager. Some schools call it SMT (senior management team). Same thing.
(If you were looking for speech and language therapy, which is also shortened to SLT in schools, this isn’t that page.)
The abbreviation is the easy bit. If you’re wondering whether SLT is for you, what you really want to know is what the team does all week and how people get onto it.
Who’s on the SLT in a school?
There’s no fixed list, and every school draws its own. A typical team includes:
- the headteacher (sometimes called the principal in academies)
- one or more deputy headteachers
- assistant headteachers, each leading an area such as behaviour, curriculum or teaching and learning
- the school business manager, who looks after finance, premises and HR
- in many schools, the SENCO and the designated safeguarding lead
Those last two are worth a note. Keeping Children Safe in Education says the designated safeguarding lead should be a senior member of staff from the leadership team, and the SEND Code of Practice says a SENCO is most effective as part of it. So even when they’re not deputies or assistant heads, they’re often in the room.
What does the SLT actually do?
Matt, a former headteacher and trust director of education who presents our courses on getting into senior leadership, sorts the work into six areas. They’re a handy way to see past the job titles.
Setting a vision. Leaders decide what kind of school they want, explain it to staff, pupils, parents and governors, and let it guide their decisions.
Being the lead teacher. Schools are places of learning, so senior leaders drive teaching quality: lesson observations, work scrutiny, pupil voice, and using data to spot and challenge underachievement. They’re expected to stay good in the classroom themselves.
Developing others. Line management, appraisal, CPD, and a culture where staff learn from each other.
Leading the organisation. Budgets, staffing, the site, health and safety, safeguarding. A finance manager might do the day-to-day work, but senior leaders are accountable for how public money is spent.
Managing the team. Clear lines of accountability, linking the school improvement plan to what happens in classrooms, and reporting to governors or trustees.
Building external links. Partnerships with other schools, agencies, parents and the local community.
Matt’s candid about which one catches new leaders out: leading the organisation. Most people arrive on SLT trained as teachers, not managers, having run a department rather than a budget. And it’s the area that does most to decide whether a school improves and stays improved.
How does SLT differ in primary, secondary and trusts?
In a small primary, the SLT might be the head, a deputy and perhaps a SENCO, and most of them still teach a class for part of the week. Roles stretch. The deputy may also be the DSL and the maths lead.
Secondary schools have bigger teams. Several assistant heads are common, each with a clear brief (behaviour, sixth form, data, curriculum), and the higher you go, the less timetabled teaching you do.
In a multi-academy trust there’s another layer above the school. A trust might have a chief executive, a director of education and sometimes executive heads who look after more than one school. Each school still has its own SLT, but some decisions (finance, HR, curriculum) may be made or shaped centrally. If you’re applying within a trust, find out where that line falls.
What does an SLT teacher do day to day?
“SLT teacher” usually means a teacher who’s also on the leadership team, most often an assistant head. The day is a mix: some teaching, plenty of meetings, duties at the gate and on corridors, line management conversations, and the jobs nobody sees (data, policies, the improvement plan).
Matt’s picture of a good senior leader is a practical one. Be at the front door in the morning so staff can catch you. Walk the school during the day and save emails for after the pupils have gone. Shadow a pupil once a term to see the school as they see it. Celebrate other people’s work as a habit, not an afterthought.
How do you become SLT in a school?
Most people get there from middle leadership: head of department, head of year, phase leader or a whole-school lead role. The title on your CV matters less than what you can show. Here’s the advice from Matt’s courses that we’d pass on to anyone thinking about the step.
Ask yourself why you want it. Matt’s open about once applying for a deputy headship mainly because it paid more and was closer to home. He got the interview, then withdrew. His point: apply only for jobs you actually want, at schools you want to work in, because the panel can tell. If you want interview practice, ask your head or chair of governors for a mock instead.
Find the right school, not just any school. An appointment is made for two reasons: the candidate has what the school needs, and the candidate fills a gap in the existing team. So do your homework. Look at the staffing structure and the other SLT posts, the latest Ofsted report, performance data over three years, newsletters, the head’s letters home, and governing body minutes if they’re published. You’re interviewing the school as much as it’s interviewing you.
Gather your evidence against those six areas. Most middle leaders have more than they think, but it’s lopsided: plenty on teaching, less on finance or external links. Find recent examples (the last two or three years) and say what changed because of what you did. If there’s a gap, ask your head for a project that fills it before you apply. This is the exercise at the heart of Becoming SLT, and it pays off twice: in the supporting statement, then again in the panels.
Be honest about your weaknesses. For every strength, have a recent example. For every weakness, say what you’re already doing about it. Panels trust that more than a list of successes.
What happens at an SLT interview?
Usually a full day. Expect several panels, and if you’re not told which, prepare for people management, finance, curriculum, teaching and learning, behaviour, and safeguarding. Treat every conversation as part of the interview, however informal it’s made to sound.
Matt’s tips are plain ones. Connect your answers back to pupils. Keep answers short; if they want more, they’ll ask. If you lose the thread, ask for the question again. Don’t panic when the panel stares at their notes rather than at you. And you don’t have to invent a question at the end: it’s a long day for them too.
You may also give a short talk to staff. Build it round one clear idea, keep it short, skip the opening apologies and jokes, and don’t depend on the projector working.
Getting ready for the step up
If you’d like to try some of this before committing to a course, our free Securing an SLT role resource pack is a good place to start. Still deciding whether SLT is right for you? Preparing for Senior Leadership covers choosing the right post, naming your strengths and setting out your vision. There’s more for current and aspiring leaders on our leadership topic page.
When you’re ready to apply, Becoming SLT takes you through the covering letter (one page, in a simple three-part structure), the application form and supporting statement, the panels you’re likely to face, and the staff presentation. It’s for middle leaders and teachers going for their first assistant or deputy head post who want to make the case they’ve already earned.