Head of Safeguarding, Attendance, Behaviour and Culture

St Joseph Catholic Multi Academy Trust, Liverpool, L3 1BY

14 days remaining to apply

• Start date details

  As soon as possible

• Closing date

  13 May 2026 at 9am

• Date listed

  29 April 2026

Job details

• Job role:
  • Other leadership roles
• Visa sponsorship: Visas cannot be sponsored
• Working pattern: Full time: Monday to Friday
• Contract type: Permanent
• Pay scale: L14 - L19

What skills and experience we're looking for

This is a Trust-wide leadership role.As Head of Safeguarding, Attendance, Behaviour and Culture, you will provide Trust-wide leadership for safeguarding and child protection, ensuring strong practice, consistent systems and a child-centred culture across all academies. Alongside this, you will lead the development and implementation of SJCMAT’s Trust-wide attendance and behaviour strategy. Working alongside leaders across the Trust, you will help academies remove barriers to attendance, reduce persistent absence, and embed consistent, high expectations for behaviour—ensuring pupils can learn and thrive. Your work will have a direct impact on pupil outcomes, particularly for our most vulnerable children and young people.

Key responsibilities (highlights)

• Safeguarding leadership (Trust DSL):lead and quality assure Trust-wide safeguarding and child protection practice, ensuring a strong culture of vigilance, timely action and child-centred decision-making across all academies.
• Compliance, audits and assurance:ensure policies, procedures and record-keeping meet statutory requirements and best practice; lead regular safeguarding audits and follow up actions, reporting risk, gaps and improvements to Trust leaders and governance.
• Expert advice, supervision and multi-agency working:provide specialist guidance and supervision to academy DSLs; support complex casework and escalation; build effective partnerships with families and external agencies to secure the right help at the right time.
• Training and professional development:plan and deliver high-quality safeguarding training (including updates linked to statutory guidance), and create resources that strengthen practice and consistency across the Trust.
• Strategic leadership:set and drive Trust-wide priorities for safeguarding, attendance, behaviour and culture, aligned to SJCMAT’s mission, values and improvement strategy.
• Insight and reporting:establish and oversee data tracking and reporting systems to inform intervention, policy and professional development; provide clear updates to Trust leaders and governance.
• Attendance excellence:develop and embed policies and systems aligned to the DfE framework for securing full attendance; work with academies to remove barriers and reduce persistent absence.
• Line management:lead and support Trust attendance officer(s) to ensure statutory processes are followed consistently and effectively.
• Behaviour culture:develop and implement a Trust-wide behaviour strategy that promotes high standards, inclusion, safety, wellbeing and belonging.
• Impact evaluation:track, monitor and evaluate interventions; analyse safeguarding, behaviour and attendance information and report on impact.

Who we are looking for

We are looking for a leader with:

• A strong personal commitment to safeguarding and promoting the welfare of children and young people, with the confidence to challenge where practice falls short.
• Proven experience leading safeguarding and child protection practice at senior level (including acting as a Designated Safeguarding Lead), with the credibility to support and quality assure DSLs across multiple settings.
• Strong working knowledge of statutory guidance and education legislation relating to safeguarding, child protection, information-sharing and safer recruitment.
• A commitment to SJCMAT’s Catholic ethos and a belief that every pupil deserves an excellent education, regardless of background.
• A proven impact improving attendance and leading behaviour at Trust-wide level or within a senior leadership role.
• Confident use of data and tracking systems (e.g., Arbor or equivalent MIS) and safeguarding systems (e.g., CPOMS or equivalent) to inform policy, practice, targeted intervention and assurance.
• Excellent relationship-building, influencing and multi-agency working skills—able to collaborate with pupils, families, leaders and external partners to secure timely support and improved outcomes.
• The ability to prioritise competing demands, work with discretion, and lead through change in a fast-paced environment.
• An education to degree level (or equivalent experience) with GCSE English and Maths (or equivalent) at grade C/4 or above.
• A full clean driving licence and access to a vehicle for business use (travel across Trust sites required).

What the school offers its staff

In return for your leadership, SJCMAT offers a package designed to support excellent professionals and help them do their best work:

Financial

• Competitive salaries and pay progression
• Generous pension scheme

Professional

• Access to extensive professional development opportunities
• SJCMAT is a growing trust and as such there are plenty of opportunities for progression

Personal

• Meaningful mission. Join SJCMAT’s Central Team in a role with genuine scope to shape strategy, build consistency and improve life chances across our academies
• The opportunity to be part of a multi-academy trust that has collaboration at its heart and will support you every step of the way
• A supportive Senior Executive Team, committed to developing people and transforming children’s lives
• Flexible working
• Employee benefits. Wellbeing support, employee assistance programme, and cycle-to-work scheme

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

St Joseph Catholic Multi Academy Trust is committed to safeguarding and promoting the welfare of children and young people and expect all staff to share this commitment. Successful applicants will be required to undergo an enhanced disclosure and barring service check. In addition, as part of the shortlisting process, and in accordance with statutory guidance, we will carry out an online search (for publicly available material) to help identify any incidents or issues that have happened which we may want to explore with shortlisted applicants at interview.

Applying for the job

Apply for the job by following the link below.

CVs will not be accepted for this application.

About St Joseph Catholic Multi Academy Trust

• Type: Multi-academy trust
• Website: St Joseph Catholic Multi Academy Trust website
• Email address: lkelly@sjcmat.co.uk
• See more jobs: teaching-vacancies.service.gov.uk/organisations/st-joseph-catholic-multi-academy-trust

St Joseph Catholic Multi Academy Trust is a based in the Liverpool City Region with five primary and four secondary academies. As a united family of academies, we are fully aligned around our central mission to transform children’s lives by providing them with a world-class Catholic education.

The Trust guarantees an excellent Catholic education to all families. Our children are entitled to access an ambitious curriculum and excellent teaching, which allow them to achieve and exceed national expectations regardless of their starting points.

Everyone involved in St Joseph CMAT is highly committed to the pursuit of high achievement. We aim for all of our academies to be at least ‘Good’ with performance in the top 20% of schools nationally in all measures, particularly in Religious Education. Our robust educational strategy, which is informed by the highest-performing Trusts in the country, is designed to ensure that all children learn to read confidently and achieve well across the curriculum so that they can go on to use their God-given gifts to make the world a better place.

St Joseph Catholic Multi Academy Trust has sponsor status. We are able to provide intensive support to schools who find themselves in a vulnerable position and onboard ‘Good’ or ‘Outstanding’ schools who choose to join as converter academies. For all academies in the Trust, there is a guarantee of high-quality professional development for all colleagues.

As part of its Multi Academy Trust strategy, the Archdiocese of Liverpool has identified a group of primary schools that are invited to join St Joseph CMAT over the coming years. This is an exciting opportunity to bring together primary and secondary schools. By working as a family of academies, we will ensure that every child benefits from an excellent Catholic education from the moment they start primary school to when they leave Sixth Form.

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