Separated head, column, body and footer

[eluser]Wazzu[/eluser]
As a newbie I still need to independently create each part of my web, by using a header.php for the header, a footer.php which will display footer notes and so.
When I try to make use of controllers and views, I just can render one view, so I don't know how should I make to generate a header or a menu with contextual content.

The only thing I got is a view file which includes a header view file and a footer view file, but I must generate all code from my controller to render the controller itself, the header and the footer, and I'm going crazy.

Is there any common way of creating separated "pieces" of the web with a MVC layout? How are you making this?

Please, help!