Assistant Head Teacher - Culture
Devonport High School for Girls, Plymouth, Devon, PL2 3DL38 days remaining to apply
Job start date
1 September 2026
Closing date
8 May 2026 at 9am
Date listed
31 March 2026
Job details
Job role
- Assistant headteacher
Visa sponsorship
- Visas cannot be sponsored
Key stage
- Key stage 3, Key stage 4, Key stage 5
Working pattern
- Full time
Contract type
- Permanent
Pay scale
- L11 - L13
What skills and experience we're looking for
Purpose
- To be a member of the Senior Leadership Team and to assist the Head Teacher in leading and managing the school in order to achieve its stated aims.
- To lead on the culture across the school, ensuring positive attitudes towards learning.
- To lead on behaviour of students across the school to ensure there are clear systems in place to monitor and manage this.
- To lead the Heads of House, to ensure effectiveness of support for students across the school.
- To lead the PSHE curriculum and effectiveness of delivery.
GENERAL LEADERSHIP STANDARDS
Qualities and Knowledge
1. Hold and articulate clear values and moral purpose, focused on providing a world class education for the students they serve.
2. Demonstrate optimistic personal behaviour, positive relationships and attitudes towards their students and staff, and towards parents, governors and members of the local community.
3. Lead by example - with integrity, creativity, resilience, and clarity - drawing on their own scholarship, expertise and skills, and that of those around them.
4. Sustain wide, current knowledge and understanding of education and school systems locally, nationally and globally, and pursue continuous professional development.
5. Work with political and financial astuteness, within a clear set of principles centred on the School’s vision, ably translating local and national policy into the school’s context.
6. Communicate compellingly the School’s vision and drive the strategic leadership, empowering all students and staff to excel
Students and Staff
1. Demand ambitious standards for all students, overcoming disadvantage and advancing equality, instilling a strong sense of accountability in staff for the impact of their work on students’ outcomes.
2. Secure excellent teaching through an analytical understanding of how students learn and of the core features of successful classroom practice and curriculum design, leading to rich curriculum opportunities and students’ well-being.
3. Establish an educational culture of ‘open classrooms’ as a basis for sharing best practice within and between schools, drawing on and conducting relevant research and robust data analysis.
4. Create an ethos within which all staff are motivated and supported to develop their own skills and subject knowledge, and to support each other.
5. Identify emerging talents, coaching current and aspiring leaders in a climate where excellence is the standard, leading to clear succession planning.
6. Hold all staff to account for their professional conduct and practice.
System and processes
1. Ensure that the school’s systems, organisation and processes are well considered, efficient and fit for purpose, upholding the principles of transparency, integrity and probity.
2. Provide a safe, calm and well-ordered environment for all students and staff, focused on safeguarding students and developing their exemplary behaviour in school and in the wider society.
3. Establish rigorous, fair and transparent systems and measures for managing the performance of all staff, addressing any under-performance, supporting staff to improve and valuing excellent practice.
4. Welcome strong governance and actively support the governing board to understand its role and deliver its functions effectively – in particular its functions to set school strategy and hold the SLT / Head Teacher to account for student, staff and financial performance.
5. Exercise strategic, curriculum-led financial planning to ensure the equitable deployment of budgets and resources, in the best interests of students’ achievements and the school’s sustainability.
6. Distribute leadership throughout the organisation, forging teams of colleagues who have distinct roles and responsibilities and hold each other to account for their decision making.
The self-improving school system
1. Create an outward-facing school which works with other schools and organisations - in a climate of mutual challenge - to champion best practice and secure excellent achievements for all students.
2. Develop effective relationships with fellow professionals and colleagues in other public services to improve academic and social outcomes for all students.
3. Challenge educational orthodoxies in the best interests of achieving excellence, harnessing the findings of well evidenced research to frame self-regulating and self-improving schools.
4. Shape the current and future quality of the teaching profession through high quality training and sustained professional development for all staff.
5. Model entrepreneurial and innovative approaches to school improvement, leadership and governance, confident of the vital contribution of internal and external accountability.
6. Inspire and influence others - within and beyond schools - to believe in the fundamental importance of education in young people’s lives and to promote the value of education.
OTHER SPECIFIC DUTIES
- To support whole school activities e.g. Speech day, Carol concert.
- To engage actively in the performance review process.
- To undertake any other duty as specified by STPCB not mentioned in the above.
- Whilst every effort has been made to explain the main duties and responsibilities of the post, each individual task undertaken may not be identified.
- Employees will be expected to comply with any reasonable request from a leader to undertake work of a similar level that is not specified in this job description.
- The school will endeavour to make any necessary reasonable adjustments to the job and the working environment to enable access to employment opportunities for disabled job applicants or continued employment for any employee who develops a disabling condition.
What the school offers its staff
We are a highly successful and oversubscribed 11-18 selective grammar school and one of the country’s highest performing state schools. Our students are absolutely fantastic and we value our staff here, and as such have sensible policies and systems in place. We recently overhauled our behaviour for learning strategy, informed by practices taken from St Ives School in Cornwall and trauma‑informed approaches, as we place real value on positive relationships with students and on the certainty and consistency of consequences rather than severity. This underpins our culture here.
Further information about the job
Commitment to safeguarding
The school is committed to safeguarding and promoting the welfare of children and young people. The successful applicant will be required to undertake an enhanced check by the Disclosure and Barring Service.
Applying for the job
Apply for the job by following the link below.
CVs will not be accepted for this application.
View advert on school website (opens in new tab)Additional documents
If you need these documents in an accessible format, please contact the school.
About Devonport High School for Girls
- School type
- Academy, ages 11 to 18
- Education phase
- Secondary school
- School size
- 916 pupils enrolled
- Age range
- 11 to 18
- Ofsted report
- View Ofsted report
- School website
- Devonport High School for Girls website
- Email address
- recruitment@dhsg.co.uk
- Phone number
- 01752 705024
A highly successful and oversubscribed 11-18 selective grammar school
Arranging a visit to Devonport High School for Girls
To arrange a visit and increase the chance of a successful application email recruitment@dhsg.co.uk.
School location
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