14 days remaining to apply

  • Start date details

    November / December 2024

  • Closing date

    17 July 2024 at 11:59pm

  • Date listed

    26 June 2024

Job details

Job role

  • Head of department or curriculum

Visa sponsorship

Visas cannot be sponsored

Key stage

Key stage 5

Subject

Psychology

Working pattern

Full time

Contract type

Maternity or parental leave cover - up to 12 months

Pay scale

Teacher's Main Pay Scale

Additional allowances

TLR2A

What skills and experience we're looking for

The position is for Maternity Cover for a period of up to 12 months. This position involves the leadership and teaching of Psychology to Sixth Form classes. The person appointed will be responsible for the Psychology Department. She/he will work with the Senior Team to promote the strategic direction for the Department within the context of a Selective School. The School has a demanding curriculum in which reading and the pursuit of scholarship are seen as of the first importance. The successful candidate will have strong academic background.

CURRICULUM

The Department prepares students to sit the AQA Advanced Level Psychology (7182) Examinations without an AS examination, over two years. Typically, 40 students study Psychology in each of the two Year groups.

EXAMINATION RESULTS

Results in Public Examinations are good, and students have been inspired to take Psychology further – typically about eight students each year enrol in Psychology-related undergraduate courses. In Summer 2023, 82% of Psychology candidates at Advanced Level were awarded A*-B grades with 73% achieving A* or A grades.

JOB DESCRIPTION

POSITION: Head of Psychology

TLR: 2A (Currently £3,213)

Line of Responsibility:

The Head of Psychology is responsible to the Director of Sixth Form Studies.

Line Management:

The Head of Psychology is responsible for appraising (as appropriate) and line managing the work of the Psychology Department.

Job Content / Core Responsibilities:

The Head of Psychology is

1 to provide for the Department guidance, advice and leadership on:

  • aims and objectives

  • Schemes of Work (which shall reflect the values the School seeks to inculcate)

  • teaching methods

  • Assessment, Recording and Reporting

  • the classroom environment

  • differentiation

2 to manage the Department and contribute to the School’s Appraisal arrangements, in particular to monitor standards of teaching and assessment in the Department, to make recommendations on INSET, and to seek to achieve targets on examination results set out in the Departmental Development Plan.

3 to manage the Department's resources and to have regard to the quality of teaching materials both purchased and internally prepared. This will also involve recommending suitable library acquisitions.

4 to ensure that the Department has in place arrangements to provide for the needs of pupils of differing abilities, including the most able and those who are within the School's Special Educational Needs provision.

5 to organize pupils into groups, to recommend the allocation of staff and to contribute to the appointment and induction of new staff. To be conscious of ways in which the engagement of others from outside School might enrich our curricular provision and to ensure the appropriate incorporation of such elements.

6 to ensure that the Department uses information on prior pupil attainment in planning teaching of particular groups and that the Department respects and follows the School's procedures for pupil tracking and target setting to enhance performance.

7 to monitor academic standards within the Department, to maintain pupil records, to identify difficulties with individual pupils and to generate solutions, to ensure that all report data is in SIMS and has been checked by published deadlines.

8 to ensure, through the use of departmental INSET time, that the Department is familiar with School and other relevant curriculum documentation and is responsive as well to relevant national developments and initiatives bearing on the work of the Department.

9 to have a familiarity with the School's Policy on Health & Safety (H&S), to direct the Department on H&S issues and to draw to the attention of the Facilities Manager any departmental matters covering H&S requiring attention.

10 to have overall responsibility for quality of displays in departmental teaching rooms and to ensure that arrangements are in place (using the designated Teaching Assistant) for the periodic changing of departmental display materials.

11 to contribute as requested to whole-school initiatives such as the Sixth Form Induction courses.

12 to promote the Department in the School’s wider agenda, e.g. via the website, The Westcliff Diary and through participation in the School’s Outreach programmes.

13 to produce each year, according to agreed schedules, a written review of the Department's work, covering public examination results; Teaching & Learning; staff development; departmental extra-curricular activity; departmental resources; and progress made towards meeting targets laid down in the School Development Plan.

14 to undertake such other duties, from time to time, as the Deputy Headmaster or the Headmaster may reasonably request.

CONDITIONS OF EMPLOYMENT

  • The above responsibilities are subject to the general duties and responsibilities contained in the written Statement of Conditions of Employment (the Contract of Employment).

  • The postholder is required to support and encourage the School’s ethos and its objectives, policies and procedures as agreed by the Governing Body.

  • To uphold the School's policy in respect of child protection and safeguarding matters.

  • The postholder shall be subject to all relevant statutory requirements as detailed in the most recent School Teachers’ Pay and Conditions Document.

  • The postholder may be required to perform any other reasonable tasks after consultation.

  • This job description allocates duties and responsibilities but does not direct the particular amount of time to be spent on carrying them out and no part of it may be so constructed.

  • This job description is not necessarily a comprehensive definition of the post. It will be reviewed at regular intervals and it may be subject to modification at any time after consultation with the postholder.

  • All staff members are required to participate in the School’s Appraisal Scheme.

What the school offers its staff

ACCOMMODATION AND FACILITIES

The teaching of Psychology is, at present, concentrated in one classroom in the Sixth Form Building. The classroom is fully equipped with audio visual resources and access to the wireless network. The Head of Department (on maternity leave) has prepared a wide variety of teaching resources, including Schemes of Work, PowerPoint presentations and student worksheets and all students are supplied with AQA Psychology Advanced Level textbooks: The Complete Companion (Fifth Edition) by Cardwell and Flanagan. These resources are well-structured and focus on the Advanced Level AQA specification, and also develop research and wider reading within the programme. The Options topics for Paper 3 that are taught at WHSB are Relationships, Schizophrenia and Addiction.

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

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About Westcliff High School for Boys Academy

School type
Academy, ages 11 to 18
Education phase
View all Secondaryjobs
School size
1267 pupils enrolled
Age range
11 to 18

Westcliff High School for Boys is an Outstanding Academy Grammar School located in Westcliff-on-Sea, Essex.

At WHSB we continue to hold dear our values and traditions whilst fostering academic excellence and a dynamism which allow us to provide a twenty-first century world class education.

Our record of outstanding success is reflected in our outstanding A Level and GCSE results and we are committed to providing the highest standards in all aspects of our provision for pupils.

We currently have around 870 boys on roll in Years 7 to 11, and 330 students in our mixed Sixth Form.

School location

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