If you want a UITableViewController (static cells/keyboard handling) and have a fixed header then you should use Containment. You can do this from a Storyboard by setting up a UIViewController with your fixed header and then using a Container View to embed the UITableViewController.
Once you have your containing view setup, you right-click drag from the Container View to the View Controller you want to embed – the UITableViewController in this case.
You can access and get a reference to the contained View Controller (the UITableViewController) from the Container View Controller by implementing the prepareForSegue:sender: method.