When the National College for School Leadership offficially opens its new pound;28 million building next month, it will not be a moment too soon. A significant number of new headteachers begin the job feeling intimidated and unprepared, according to researchers at Hull University. One interviewee said: “There is nothing more frightening than finding yourself alone in your office the week before your first term and realising you haven’t got a clue what being a headteacher is about.” (The TES, September 13.) Beverly Jones, an early graduate of the national professional qualification for headship, is an enthusiastic advocate of the soothing powers of the Nottingham-based NCSL. “It gave me the opportunity to work with high-quality professionals, to clarify my own vision and values and to be aware of the impact of my style of working,” she says.

She joined Chesterton community college in Cambridge as a deputy head in 1991, but despite the fact that, at 33, she was the second youngest teacher in the school, she did not aspire to headship. “First, I was pregnant all the time; later, I thought I couldn’t be a headteacher, with three children. I wanted to spend time with them and I was concerned about travelling and evening meetings.”

In addition, she just didn’t see herself as headteacher material. “I had all those historic prejudices. I thought that unless you had an academic background, and had produced zillions of timetables, you couldn’t really be a headteacher.”

Despite her reservations, she joined the first intake of trainees (1997-99), and had her eyes opened. “The whole programme gave the opportunity to celebrate experiences, skills and qualities I already had, and to develop them focused on headship,” she says. “There were areas I was doubtful about, like data handling, but I developed those too. The trainers were fantastic role models: vibrant, inspirational people. They gave me pride in the profession and a confidence in what I could offer.”

The principal’s job became vacant at Chesterton just as Beverly Jones was finishing her training, and, after consulting her family, she decided to go for it. “It was my first application for a headship and my first interview. But I’d refined my vision and values through the course and was able to articulate them.”

Ms Jones is now a trainer and assessor for the NPQH course, and convinced of the benefits of the NCSL - both for aspiring heads and for herself. “The new building oozes confidence and quality, and every time I go there I feel I am at the forefront of this country, I am a key player in shaping the future of this country with the young people in my school and the teachers who are there. You need space away from your organisation to appreciate that.”

She insists that no graduate of the course should leave harbouring the doubts uncovered by the researchers at Hull. But she adds: “Success will depend on the relationships you form with others, and your own receptiveness to their input. The secret I got from it is that you don’t have to be an expert on everything, but you have to know where to tap into other people’s expertise.”

Getting the job is just the first hurdle, of course, and even as education ministers bask in the glow of the opening of the state-of-the-art building they must be uneasily aware that workload is a major deterrent for potential school leaders. A week after she became principal at Chesterton, Beverly Jones told her local authority adviser she would not be staying. This summer - nearly three years later - she told him the same thing again, as she has done at intervals throughout her headship. So is she leaving? “Probably not,” she says.“But it’s good for my stress, to think I don’t have to do this for ever.”

Worklife balance remains a pressing issue for heads. Put off by workload and the pace of change, four out of 10 deputies and assistant heads claim to have no interest in the top job, according to researchers from London University’s Institute of Education. While the Government considers the worrying implications for the future supply of school leaders, the question of whether you can be a headteacher and have a life remains a subject of hot debate.

Take Beverly Jones. The job at Chesterton is considerable: the school has 1,000 pupils speaking 40 languages, plus a community education remit that covers everything from a pre-schoolers’ creche to swimming classes for four year-olds and yoga and English language courses for local residents; 3,000 adults study at Chesterton. The budget for the “day school” is pound;2.5 million.

Ms Jones’s office is full of tokens from her different lives. There are drawings by her children on one wall, a “keep calm and carry on” poster (a present from the chair of governors) on the opposite wall, and a black and white photograph of herself from her drama teacher days behind her to demonstrate that she doesn’t take herself too seriously. She has a bunch of yellow lilies on the table to remind herself of the “feel-good factor”.

Under Beverly Jones and her five-strong leadership team, which includes a full-time administrator, Chesterton has gone from having spare capacity to being oversubscribed. Always strong on inclusion, it now prides itself on offering more for the high-fliers: students can take up to four languages at GCSE and some enter music exams early; Latin and ski trips are available alongside the access and inclusion zone. Visiting academics and international workers at Cambridge’s expanding science and technology companies feel increasingly comfortable sending their children to Chesterton, a school that also serves Asian and white working-class estates.

Beverley Jones values her independence. “I’m not constrained by national and local requirements,” she says. “I’m outspoken in the staffroom and with the LEA and with my peers, in questioning the constraints that emerge through the various forms of communication. I regard all the national bodies as an opportunity rather than a threat. Why do we all have to get worked up about Ofsted? And when you get a DfES paper, if you like the look of it, you can run with it. If not, you’ve got to have the confidence to say, ‘It’s not appropriate for my community’.”

Her most important indicator of success, she says, is whether the children and parents feel pride and confidence in the school - “and they will feel proud, if it meets their needs”.

Ms Jones has a growing reputation as a school leader both in the county and nationally, but the worklife balance issue remains problematic.“I do suffer with the pressure of dealing with so many human beings,” she says. “It comes with resolving conflicts with parents, staff and pupils, knowing that mistakes are made and that they affect people’s lives.”

She describes a day involving an irate parent, a child protection incident, staff ill-health, a fire alarm and a presentation to governors, all interspersed with the “beat the pile” daily round of paperwork. “You’re sat here having a cup of tea to recover from one thing and whoomph - the next one comes. People in health or social services get debriefings or supervisions after stressful encounters. I’m an open person, I admit awful events. But others don’t, or are receiving supervision from their spouse or their PA.”

Disciplinary issues with staff have been “exhausting”, she says. “That’s the one area where I’m closed, because it’s on a need to know basis. In business, it would be a human resources issue. For us, the LEA gives telephone advice, but the first line of action is you.”

Being taken to an industrial tribunal by a former member of staff has been highly stressful - “it hung over me for 15 months” - and the need recently to reorganise a year group to make the tutor groups more comprehensive was unpopular with some parents. “The nature of our parent body is that they challenge with aggression, or they challenge with intellect. Every week, I have parents testing with one or the other. Staff challenge, too. And you do reflect - were your words and actions correct?” She has been taken aback, she says, by the impression she makes as principal. “I had underestimated my personal impact on some people, how frightening I was, to adults as well as children. It’s the badge. You have to learn about the impact you have in the role, because you’re carrying the badge. And people misquote you. That’s another thing I’ve learned.”

Periodically, stress builds. “It shows up as me getting louder and louder, and rude,” she says. “And pale. One of my colleagues will come and ask if I’m all right, or a deputy will say ‘go home’. It happens a couple of times a year. I go home and look after my children and it puts it in perspective.”

Ms Jones sets strict on-site hours, working from 8am to 5.45pm Monday to Thursday and 8am to 4.30pm on Friday. She returns to school for evening meetings twice a week on average, and spends one evening a week on paperwork. “There is no time for creative or strategic thinking. You do it while you’re washing up, or driving the car,” she says. “The big shock was the 24-hour mental work. You go to sleep thinking about the job and you wake up thinking about it. Your moral responsibility to these young people means that you drive yourself to effect change at a pace.”

At the same time, she has the normal family worries and responsibilities - and guilt. “Like other parents I have to find the pound;3 for the astronomy talk in the morning, and I’ve lost the letter. And I sometimes feel, ‘Why can’t home have the best of me, instead of the leftovers?’

“I do 24 hour days. I’ve got a lot of energy and it’s my choice. Essentially, I’m not selfish. I give to school all day, to my own children and to my husband. Who’s giving to me? I’d say my colleagues, my chair of governors. But the fact is that if you’re a female head and your husband’s working, there’s no one looking after you in that way.”

One source of help has been an NCSL initiative, the Ithaka programme, which, drawing on business practice, gives school leaders the chance to get together in small groups and talk about themselves and their teams over two or three days.

“It’s secured my own health and contributed to the health of the organisation,” says Beverly Jones. “It’s the only place you can go and be totally open and honest about everything. You come back refreshed and supported.” But she poses a question which must surely be exercising ministerial minds even as the first school leaders enter the Jubilee Campus building. “If you’re doing this job well - really going for it - can you do it for years?”

See ‘Leading from the middle’, page 20. For more information about the National College for School Leadership go to www.ncsl.org.uk