I get along fine with my HOD, we have a good friendship and he is supportive. However, he is a complete perfectionist and workaholic which is causing me some stress. I'll elaborate: this HOD marks books meticulously after EVERY lesson, so his marking is always in-depth and up to date. I however don't have time for this, I mark every 2 lessons as per the school's policy, sometimes I don't manage to mark every 2 lessons, or the work they have completed in books is so minuscule I leave it another 1 or 2 lessons. The HOD has pulled me up on this several times, and has requested that I now mark after every lesson, I tried this - I was marking from 4:30 to 11:30 every night and all day on Sunday, leaving me no time for planning, and no time for family.
Secondly, the HOD is too picky when it comes to observing my lessons or completing learning walks. He writes the SOW - again, to perfection with each activity having specific instructions - and insists that is only taught his way. I have had one observation where he gave me a 3 simply because I had changed the way I taught something and he didn't like it. I asked a member of SLT to observe the same lesson with a different class and was graded a 1.
A few months ago he asked me to write a SOW for him, including all lesson activities. When I popped into one of his lessons he had completely changed what I had planned, when I asked him why I was told "I don't teach the same way as you, so in my head the lesson didn't make sense, so I changed it." Perfectly fine I thought, yet when I try to use the same in my defence I am told I am not to change anything, not a starter or plenary, not a worksheet, not a powerpoint.
Thirdly, he is single and doesn't really have a life outside work, he works all night, sometimes staying at school until 8pm running revision sessions for the students, and runs revision on weekends, he gives up every single break, lunchtime and after school to work with students and I'm expected to do the same. I don't think this is fair, if I'm teaching for a full day I would at least like to have 15 minutes to eat my lunch in peace, yet its frowned upon and creates tension between us when I say no.
I'm finding this increasingly difficult to deal with on a daily basis, to top it all off I'm regularly questioned and monitored by SLT every time we have a disagreement, I feel like I'm being spied on. In a meeting last week with our line manager issues and complaints from him were raised that I had no idea of, it came totally out of the blue.
To put it into context I have previously been a HOD in 3 other schools and was a head of faculty in my last school, I am used to working with different people but this is something else. Any advice?