Curriculum Area Leader English (Head of Department)
North Huddersfield Trust School, Huddersfield, West Yorkshire, HD2 1DJ4 days remaining to apply
Start date details
September 2024
Closing date
9 May 2024 at 10am
Date listed
25 April 2024
Job details
Job role
- Teacher
Visa sponsorship
- Visas cannot be sponsored
Subject
- English
Working pattern
- Full time
Contract type
- Permanent
Full-time equivalent salary
- MPS/UPS TLR1b (£11,410)
Curriculum Area Leader English (Head of Department) job summary
Dear Applicant,
Thank you for your interest in the currently advertised position of Curriculum Area Leader for English at North Huddersfield Trust School. It is a wonderful opportunity for the right person to play a key strategic role in the continuing growth, development and improvement of a truly unique community based educational establishment. Our ethos is to provide a challenging, ambitious, inclusive education designed to create engaged, critical and resilient learners equipped to become the people who define, shape and transform society. The narrative of the school is remarkable and I feel privileged to have been given the opportunity to lead the next phase of its history.
The opportunity arises with the current postholder having secured a promoted position in another Kirklees school. The successful candidate will be joining an extremely strong department who have played a major role in not only delivering record academic outcomes but, as importantly, providing a consistently excellent quality of education within a caring, supportive, aspirational environment.
This is an ideal opportunity for a suitably experienced colleague to join NHTS’ strong group of middle leaders who continue to drive our ongoing successes and improvements.
I took up post in 2019, with the majority of the senior team having been appointed since this time. Staffing as a whole sees a positive balance between colleagues who are relatively new to NHTS and a number who have been part of the school for a much longer period of time. When the school first opened in 2011, there was the matter of 340 students on roll. We now have over 1000 students on roll and – as from September 2024 – will have an above PAN intake of 210 in all five year groups. The LA have proposed a permanent increase in the PAN (from 180 to 210) with plans for a new teaching block to open during the course of the academic year 2024-2025.
During the last three years, the curriculum has been completely overhauled and the way it is delivered reformed and refined, so that it matches the ambition we hold for every student; huge strides have been made in the consistency and effectiveness of classroom delivery. We are determined and confident that this will result in significant and sustained improvements in attainment; this was confirmed with record outcomes in August 2023. We believe that education is not only about academic outcomes with our bespoke leadership and achievement programme designed to develop the people we believe will shape and transform society.
We were inspected by OFSTED in May 2022 which confirmed our status as a good school, describing ‘a welcoming and vibrant atmosphere’ where ‘the diversity of the school and community is celebrated’. It also confirms the curriculum ‘sequences what pupils need to learn’ and is designed ‘to enhance pupils’ cultural capital and understanding of the world’. As a school that is fully committed to inclusion, the report highlights that ‘pupils are calm and patient’ and that ‘staff help to build and manage positive relationships’.
Please take the time to read the contents of this pack carefully and to look at our website which provides lots of information about the school, its values, links and identity.
I hope that, having read through all the available information, you are keen to submit an application and look forward to receiving it. Should you wish to have an informal discussion about the role and/or arrange a visit prior to any application, please contact Nora Brown to arrange (further details in the body of the advert).
Thank you again for your interest in the position and, should you choose to make an application, I wish you the best of luck.
Yours sincerely
Andrew Fell
Headteacher
Commitment to safeguarding
Our organisation is committed to safeguarding and promoting the welfare of children, young people and vulnerable adults. We expect all staff, volunteers and trustees to share this commitment.
Our recruitment process follows the keeping children safe in education guidance.
Offers of employment may be subject to the following checks (where relevant):
childcare disqualification
Disclosure and Barring Service (DBS)
medical
online and social media
prohibition from teaching
right to work
satisfactory references
suitability to work with children
You must tell us about any unspent conviction, cautions, reprimands or warnings under the Rehabilitation of Offenders Act 1974 (Exceptions) Order 1975.
Applying for the job
Using the application form
This school accepts applications through their own website, where you may also find more information about this job.
About North Huddersfield Trust School
- School type
- Local authority maintained school, ages 11 to 16
- Education phase
- View all Secondaryjobs
- School size
- 920 pupils enrolled
- Age range
- 11 to 16
- Ofsted report
- View Ofsted report (opens in new tab)
The school opened in 2011 and has more than doubled in size. We currently have 845 students on role including an oversubscribed intake of over 210 in Year 7. Judged as ‘good’ during the most recent Ofsted inspection and with a level of pastoral care recognised to be excellent, there is a confidence in the effectiveness of approach and the impact made across all areas. A values focused ethos has been firmly established; this is reflected in the extremely strong relationships that are evident across the school.
As Headteacher since May 2019, I am in the privileged position of leading the school in its quest to provide a safe and happy environment in which our students thrive. Recruiting staff with the potential to make a significant contribution to this is crucial. You will play an important role in developing and delivering excellent standards of teaching and learning across our school.
You will undoubtedly conduct research on our school and will see that the historic KS4 outcomes are well below aspirations; we were confident of an improvement in the most recent set of results but, as you will be aware, circumstances beyond our control mean that these are not published as key performance indicators. I’m pleased to confirm that last year's Year 11 students gained access to their desired post-16 destinations with 98.6% successfully enrolled in education or training which includes a significantly higher percentage accessing 'A' Levels. We are at an extremely exciting phase of our development with a largely new senior leadership team and strong middle leadership which includes staff who are new to post. Alongside a broad and balanced taught curriculum, we are in the process of implementing a bespoke leadership and achievement programme for each of our year groups; learning at NHTS is not just about aspiring to academic excellence, it is focused on developing a wider provision that meets our long term mission in creating engaged, critical and resilient learners equipped to become the people who define, shape and transform society.
Andrew Fell
Headteacher
School location
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