Assistant Principal

Lift Beacon, Loughborough, Leicestershire, LE11 2NF

14 days remaining to apply

• Start date details

  August 2026

• Closing date

  2 June 2026 at 2:40pm

• Date listed

  19 May 2026

Job details

• Job role:
  • Assistant headteacher
• Visa sponsorship: Visas cannot be sponsored
• Working pattern: Full time
• Contract type: Permanent
• Full-time equivalent salary: £57137 - £63070 per annum

Assistant Principal job summary

An exciting and rare opportunity has arisen at Lift Beacon for an Assistant Principal.

Assistant Principal - Attendance, Behaviour & Curriculum

Lift Beacon

Woodthorpe Road
Loughborough, LE11 2NF
United Kingdom

Salary: Leadership Scale 5-9 (dependent on experience) + well-being cash plan + pension scheme + additional Lift Schools benefits

Hours: Full-time

Contract Type: Permanent

Start Date: August 2026, although we would also consider a January 2027 start for the right candidate

An exciting and rare opportunity has arisen for an ambitious, passionate leader to join Lift Beacon as an Assistant Principal, with a strategic focus on attendance, behaviour and curriculum.

This is a fantastic opportunity for an aspiring or experienced senior leader committed to improving outcomes for children and ensuring every pupil receives an excellent education every day.

Your New School

Lift Beacon Primary is a thriving and inclusive primary school in Loughborough, serving children aged 2-11. The school was graded 'Good' in all areas by Ofsted in 2021 and continues to go from strength to strength.

As an IQM (Inclusion Quality Mark) Centre of Excellence, the school is deeply committed to inclusion, high expectations, and ensuring that every child feels valued, supported, and inspired to succeed. At Lift Beacon Primary, we believe every pupil deserves an excellent education every day, underpinned by high expectations, a broad and ambitious curriculum and a strong focus on personal development.

The school prides itself on its strong team culture, supportive leadership and commitment to professional development. Leaders are visible, hands-on and invested in developing staff at every stage of their career.

Lift Beacon is a school where teamwork is central, staff feel genuinely valued, and every member of the community works together to ensure pupils thrive academically, socially and emotionally.

Your New Role

As Assistant Principal, you will be a key member of the Senior Leadership Team and will play a pivotal role in driving school improvement, with a particular strategic focus on attendance, behaviour and curriculum.

You will work closely with senior leaders, staff, pupils and families to ensure that all children attend regularly, engage positively in school life and achieve their full potential. You will lead and support targeted attendance strategies, build strong relationships with families and external agencies and help embed a culture where attendance and inclusion are everyone's responsibility.

Alongside this, you will support the continued development and implementation of a broad, ambitious and carefully sequenced curriculum that enables all pupils to succeed. You will work collaboratively with subject leaders and teaching staff to drive high standards of teaching and learning across the school.

This role is ideal for an aspiring senior leader ready to take the next step in their career within a supportive, development-focused environment. The role is non-class based but there will be a teaching commitment attached, as leaders at Lift Beacon lead by example through maintaining a strong classroom presence.

You will:

* Support the implementation of the school improvement plan
* Lead on attendance improvement strategies and targeted interventions
* Support curriculum development and drive high-quality teaching and learning
* Work closely with families, external agencies and staff to remove barriers to learning
* Promote high expectations, positive behaviour and pupil wellbeing
* Support and develop middle leaders and teaching staff
* Contribute to a strong safeguarding and inclusive culture across the school

What You'll Need to Succeed

We are looking for an exceptional classroom practitioner and leader who is passionate about improving outcomes for all children.

You will:

* Be a qualified teacher with successful experience in primary education
* Have a strong understanding of curriculum development and teaching & learning
* Demonstrate experience of leading or supporting whole-school improvement initiatives
* Have a clear understanding of attendance strategies and barriers to learning
* Be able to build positive relationships with pupils, families, staff and external agencies
* Be passionate about inclusion, safeguarding and pupil wellbeing
* Have excellent communication, organisation and leadership skills
* Be committed to maintaining high expectations and securing excellent outcomes for all pupils

Experience working within disadvantaged communities or supporting vulnerable pupils would be highly beneficial.

We will review applications and interview as soon as possible, so early applications are encouraged.

Closing Date: 5th June 2026

Further information about the job

The candidate will be required to undergo a full enhanced DBS check and must be eligible to work in the UK.

Visas cannot be sponsored.

If you're interested in teaching or training to teach in England as an international citizen, we can help you understand your next steps.

Commitment to safeguarding

Lift Schools are committed to ensuring the highest levels of safeguarding and promoting the welfare of our pupils, and we expect all our people and volunteers to share this commitment. We adopt a fair and consistent recruitment process which is inline with Keeping Children Safe in Education guidance. This includes online checks for shortlisted candidates. All offers of employment are subject to an Enhanced DBS check, references, and where applicable, a prohibition from teaching check.

Applying for the job

This school accepts applications through their own website, where you may also find more information about this job.

CVs will not be accepted for this application.

About Lift Beacon

• School type: Academies, ages 2 to 11
• Education phase: Primary school
• School size: 308 pupils enrolled
• Age range: 2 to 11
• Ofsted report: View Ofsted report
• School website: Lift Beacon website
• See more jobs: teaching-vacancies.service.gov.uk/organisations/beacon-academy-loughborough

We are a large primary school on the edge of Loughborough with an MLD Special Provision and Nursery.

Lift Beacon is a great place to be where children are at the centre of what we do. We work closely as a team to improve the life chances of our children who come from all over Loughborough, including Shelthorpe Estate. Our intake is mixed; with a high number of children with EHCPs and over half our children are entitled to free school meals. Therefore everyone who works at Beacon has a drive to make sure that our children get the best education they possibly can, this has its challenges but is incredibly rewarding.

We endeavour to work closely with other schools locally and have a number of links to Ashmount Special School through the Loughborough Learning Alliance (LLA). The LLA provide local professional development and enable us to moderate our work within the Loughborough Area. Nationally we are linked to Lift Schools where we are able to use nation research and resources to impact our teaching and learning.

The staff at Beacon are our greatest resource and we will nurture and develop you throughout your career. Being part of Lift Schools means every employee at every level is able to access tailored CPD and opportunities to work across the group as they progress.

We warmly welcome visitors and hope that you will come and see for yourself just what we are about and whether or not working here is right for you.

Thank you for your interest in our school; we can't wait to meet you!

General Information

Lift Beacon is a 2 to 11 aged community school in the Shelthorpe area of Loughborough.

The school originally opened in 1933 as an infant and junior school and was later amalgamated into a single school. The Nursery building was opened in 2005. The school also benefits from an extensive field space for outdoor activities. In December 2012 it became part of a network of schools sponsored by Lift Schools.

It is a larger than average-sized primary school with 309 pupils. Included in this figure, is a 40-place Moderate Learning Difficulty (MLD) resource provision for children with an Education & Health Care Plan (EHC) or a Statement of Special Educational Needs and Disabilities. Our popular 80-place full-time equivalent (FTE), term-time only Nursery includes a 6 FTE Severe Learning Difficulty (SLD) resource provision.

There are various clubs and activities that take place on site during the evenings and at weekends for adults and children within the community. There is a weekly Family Learning group that works alongside one of the teachers and children in Key Stage 1. The area has good transport links and the School is close to Loughborough University. Housing is a mixture of council and affordable dwellings. This is a community that is growing as can be seen from the high numbers of pupils in Key Stage 1.

School location

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