How do you measure up?

The self-assessment tools you need are already at your fingertips. Keep things simple, practical and part of your everyday working life. Here are three means of self-assessment that everyone can access:

1 Performance management

The formal performance management process in school should provide you with a means of assessing your experience to date and, more importantly, with a springboard to plan your development for the future. Performance management should be seen as a professional entitlement, not as something that is done to you.

2 Your future job referees

At some point in any future application process you will need to call on the support of personal referees.

In reality, you have little choice about who you ask. For most applications, potential employers will expect to see your current headteacher and someone from your local authority. Whilst you will obviously have a relationship with your headteacher, it may not always be the case that you have a profile with potential referees inside the local authority. If that is so, how will they write a reference about someone they don't know? You need to engage them early.

At the very least, you need to have a good sense of how they are likely to respond to a reference request. What do they see as your strengths and weaknesses? Much better, however, is that your potential referees are engaged in your quest for headship, working with you to help you achieve your goal. In simple terms, don't just think of job referees as the names you have to put on an application form but nurture them as potential supporters and advocates.

Referees can also help you self-assess and career plan. Local authority referees, in particular, can give you access to opportunities on a larger scale, opening new networks and gateways to experience practice in other schools.

3 Feedback from job interviews

This is the best kind of assessment of your readiness for headship, direct from the cut and thrust of the recruitment market.

However well you might plan to reach the goal of becoming a headteacher, in the end you must convince a governing body that you are ready. Whilst every interview should be approached with the aim of getting the job, if you are not successful it can still be a valuable assessment tool to chart any gap between your current level of experience and your goal.

The advantage of interview feedback as a method of assessment is that it helps you put the national standards into the context of your real-world practice. It can also provide a sharp reflection of the level of your personal behaviours and qualities: your ability to generate confidence, your communication skills and your capacity to engage.