Forest School Lead

Courtlands School, Plymouth, Devon, PL6 5JS

16 days remaining to apply

• Start date details

  ASAP - Pending pre-employment checks

• Closing date

  1 February 2026 at 10:59pm

• Date listed

  16 January 2026

Job details

• Job role:
  • Teacher
• Visa sponsorship: Visas cannot be sponsored
• Working pattern: Full time
• Contract type: Permanent
• Full-time equivalent salary: £21,941.00 - £34,233.00 Annually (Actual)

Forest School Lead job summary

About the role

Job Title: Learning Outside the Classroom Lead

Salary Range: UQT 1-6 Scale, (£21,941 to £34,233), depending on qualifications and experience.

Contract Type: Permanent

Job Description

In response to the needs of specific pupils, we are seeking to appoint a Learning Outside the Classroom Lead. The core purpose of this role is to facilitate and enable access to learning for the individual pupils. In addition, the successful postholder will provide specific therapeutic support in line with the pupils’ Education Health and Care Plan for which full training will be delivered.

You will work with a team of Teachers and Teaching Assistants to equip pupils with life skills that will enable them to thrive as independent, skilled adults who can navigate the multiple demands of the wider world. We are looking for proactive, resilient practitioners with the ability and flexibility to act as a key person for an individual student, delivering specialist and learning support, alongside assisting with the teaching and learning across the full curriculum accessed by each student.

We are developing an excellent reputation for providing student-centred learning and support with the highest level of challenge, to ensure our pupils attain the highest standards of personal, social, emotional and academic development. We have 100 pupils currently on roll, all of whom are in receipt of an Education, Health and Care Plan.

If you want to help us deliver bespoke, innovative education tailored to the needs of our unique pupils, then we would love to hear from you.

Please see attached Candidate pack for more details.

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

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

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 Courtlands School

• School type: Academy, ages 4 to 11
• School size: 108 pupils enrolled
• Age range: 4 to 11
• Ofsted report: View Ofsted report
• School website: Courtlands School website
• See more jobs: teaching-vacancies.service.gov.uk/organisations/courtlands-school

Courtlands Special School Academy is a friendly and ambitious academy in Plymouth which caters for primary aged children (4-11) with Moderate Learning Difficulties and Social, Emotional and Mental Health needs. Our innovative curriculum is based on meeting individual’s needs rather than schemes of work, and provides a wide range of curriculum and therapeutic input.

We are leaders in our field, having won numerous national awards for our work, and work in a Trauma Informed way to support our children to overcome their difficulties and make great progress in all areas of their development. We constantly strive for the best ways to support our children, and welcome innovation and new, evidence based ways of working.

You will need high levels of emotional resilience, and good coping strategies born out of successful experience of teaching and supporting children with complex needs including Social, Emotional and Mental Health Difficulties such as ADHD and attachment disorders; Communication and Interaction needs such as ASC and Speech and Language Difficulties. This could be in either a special school or mainstream school, with mainstream experience being an advantage.

We can offer you a motivated and skilled staff team and a real opportunity to make a difference to the future of our wonderful children and school. We look after our staff with award winning care for their wellbeing (National Wellbeing in Schools Award 2019). You won’t be taking marking home to do in the evening, and you will be given the freedom to meet the needs of the pupils in your class, along with the resources to do it. You will receive training in a wide range of SEND and real time support and mentoring form a Leadership Team whose door is literally open all the time.

School location

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