Head of School
Lotus School, Blackpool, Lancashire, FY4 4RRThis job expired on 22 April 2024
Job start date
1 September 2024
Closing date
22 April 2024 at 12pm (midday)
Date listed
2 April 2024
Job details
Job role
- Headteacher
Visa sponsorship
- Visas cannot be sponsored
Key stage
- Key stage 3, Key stage 4
Working pattern
- Full time
Contract type
- Permanent
Pay scale
- L19 to L24
What skills and experience we're looking for
MAIN PURPOSE:
Translate the vision into a development plan and implement it successfully. Establish and oversee systems, processes and policies so the school can operate effectively.
Be responsible for the internal organisation, management and control of the school. Secure and sustain effective teaching and learning throughout the school.
Line management and appraisal of staff.
Manage finances and resources astutely to maximise their use and value, aligned to the achievement of the school’s strategy and vision.
Provision of effective pastoral care and behaviour support.
Sustain a learning environment to ensure inclusion, diversity and access for all staff and pupils. Create an outward-facing school to work with other schools, organisations and community partners to champion best practice, enhance learning and maximise inter-school liaison opportunities.
Work with the other school leaders to share expertise and practice.
Take the lead role on working in partnership with the Governing Body to build on the existing collaborative school vision, values and strategic plan, which embrace excellence, high standards and inclusion.
MAIN TASKS:
Serve the students of Lotus School.
Ensure that all activities within the school serve the vision, strategic direction and priorities outlined by the Trust and Lotus Governing Body.
Contribute to the strategic development of the school and plan for the future in consultation with key Trust leaders.
To lead by example in providing inspiration and motivation in delivery of the school vision. Develop the ethos, which secures effective teaching, successful learning and achievement by pupils. Sustain improvements in spiritual, moral, social, cultural and physical development, leading to the successful transition to prepare pupils for the opportunities and responsibilities and experience of adult life.
Establish a culture of high expectations and staff professionalism.
Promote positive and respectful relationships across the school community and a safe, orderly and inclusive environment.
Write the school development plan in partnership with Trust leaders.
Build Lotus School as a specialist provision for students with SEMH.
Plan and co-ordinate CPD to develop the professionalism and skills of the staff.
Regularly monitor and evaluate the performance of the school and report to the Trust Leader and the Governing Body of the school.
Ensure that policies and practices take account of national, local and school data, including inspection and the outcomes of school self-evaluation.
Monitor, evaluate and review the impact of policies, priorities and targets of the school in practice, and take action if necessary.
Ensure that all those involved in the school are committed to its ethos, aims and values, are motivated to achieve them and involved in meeting long, medium and short term objectives and targets, which secure the educational success of the school.
Maintain positive relationships with strategic partners at all levels, both within the school and in the wider community.
Under the direction of the Trust Leader/strategic lead for SEND, lead the interface with Ofsted.
TEACHING:
Work with key Trust leaders to secure and sustain outstanding teaching and learning throughout the school, based on evidence-informed understanding of effective teaching and how pupils learn.
Monitor, evaluate and review classroom practice and promote improvement strategies. Ensure teaching is underpinned by high levels of subject expertise and approaches. Ensure effective use is made of formative assessment.
CURRICULUM:
Ensure a broad, structured and coherent curriculum entitlement which sets out the knowledge, skills and values that will be taught.
Establish effective curricular leadership, developing subject leaders with high levels of relevant expertise, with access to professional networks and communities.
Ensure that all pupils are taught to read through the provision of evidence-informed approaches to reading, particularly the use of systematic synthetic phonics in schools that teach early reading.
Ensure valid, reliable and proportionate approaches are used when assessing pupils’ knowledge and understanding of the curriculum.
Maintain an environment and code of behaviour that promotes and secures good teaching, effective learning, high standards of achievement and good behaviour and discipline, which supports teachers and other staff to meet the standards set out in the professional development framework.
BEHAVIOUR:
Establish and sustain high expectations of behaviour for all pupils, built upon relationships, rules and routines, which are understood clearly by all staff and pupils.
Ensure high standards of pupil behaviour and courteous conduct in accordance with the school’s behaviour policy.
Implement consistent, fair and respectful approaches to managing behaviour.
Ensure that adults within the school model and teach the behaviour of a good citizen.
PROFESSIONAL DEVELOPMENT:
Ensure staff have access to high-quality and sustained professional development opportunities, aligned to balance the priorities of whole-school improvement, team and individual needs. Develop and maintain effective performance reviews and clear development plans for all staff. Prioritise the professional development of staff, ensuring effective planning, delivery and evaluation, which is consistent with the approaches laid out in the standard for teachers’ professional development.
Ensure that professional development opportunities draw on expert provision from beyond the school, as well as within it, including nationally recognised career and professional frameworks and programmes to build capacity and support succession planning.
ORGANISATIONAL DEVELOPMENT:
Ensure the protection and safety of pupils and staff through effective approaches to safeguarding, as part of the duty of care.
Prioritise and allocate financial resources appropriately, ensuring efficiency, effectiveness and probity in the use of public funds.
Ensure staff are deployed and managed well with due attention paid to workload. Establish and oversee systems, processes and policies that enable the school to operate effectively and efficiently.
Ensure rigorous approaches to identifying, managing and mitigating risk.
CONTINUOUS SCHOOL IMPROVEMENT:
Make use of effective and proportional processes of evaluation to identify and analyse complex or persistent problems and barriers that limit school effectiveness and identify priority areas for improvement.
Develop appropriate evidence-informed strategies for improvement as part of well targeted plans which are realistic, timely, appropriately sequenced and suited to the school’s context. Ensure careful and effective implementation of improvement strategies, which lead to sustained school improvement over time.
WORKING IN PARTNERSHIP:
Forge constructive relationships beyond the school, working in partnership with parents, carers and the local community.
Commit the school to work successfully with other schools and organisations in a climate of mutual challenge and support.
Establish and maintain working relationships with fellow professionals and colleagues across other public services to improve educational outcomes for all pupils.
Establish and nurture a senior leadership team that collaborates, shares responsibility, challenges openly and supports one another.
GOVERNANCE AND ACCOUNTABILITY:
Understand and welcome the role of effective governance, upholding their obligation to give account and accept responsibility.
Establish and sustain professional working relationships with those responsible for governance. Ensure that staff know and understand their professional responsibilities and are held to account.
Ensure the school effectively and efficiently operates within the required regulatory frameworks and meets all statutory duties.
The post holder will be expected to comply with all reasonable requests from the CEO to undertake work of a similar level that is not specified in this job description.
What the school offers its staff
At Synergy Education Trust we pride ourselves on being an employer that continually invests in our employees as we know that it is our staff who will ensure that we meet our vision. As a new Trust, we are currently designing and building our offer for staff which is a priority for Trustees and the Central Team.
Currently, each role comes with a wealth of job related benefits, such as:
Employee Assistance Programme
Our programme is run by Health Assured and provides a support line for staff to access a range of practical and emotional help 24/7. This includes counselling, financial, legal and practical support from qualified professionals. There is also access to an online health and wellbeing resource, as well as face to face counselling as required
Flexible and Hybrid Working
We actively promote the use of flexible and hybrid working and have a policy in place that all of our schools follow. We have found that a flexible and responsive attitude to working enables us to attract and retain a high quality workforce.
Pensions
You will have the option to join the Teachers’ Pension Scheme, which is a
defined benefit scheme that provides a guaranteed income pension for teachers in England and Wales.
Pay Progression
As well as any nationally agreed pay award (a salary increase linked to inflation), our employees also have access to pay progression in accordance with the pay scale for the role.
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.
Upload additional documents
If you need these documents in an accessible format, please contact the school.
About Lotus School
- School type
- Free School, ages 10 to 16
- School size
- 40 pupils enrolled
- Age range
- 10 to 16
- Ofsted report
- View Ofsted report (opens in new tab)
- School website
- Lotus School website (opens in new tab)
- Email address
- admin@seteducation.org.uk
Lotus School was opened in September 2020 as part of Champion Education Trust. In September 2024, Lotus will be moving in to the Synergy Education Trust family of schools. Synergy is a new local MAT of Special and Primary settings in Blackpool.
The mission at Lotus is to improve the life chances of all of our young people within our supportive family of schools, providing opportunities to allow young people to achieve beyond expectation, regardless of background, need or prior attainment.
We are determined and passionate to ensure that all of our staff are supported and trained to make a first class provision for all of our young people.
Synergy has six key values that underpin our work and ethos:
Inclusive Provision
Empowering Individuality
Innovation
Honesty
Respect
Collaborative Working
The Head of School at Lotus will translate the vision for the school into a development plan and implement it successfully with support from the Trust Central Team, Trustees of Synergy and the Local Governing Board. We are on an improvement journey at Lotus, which is recognised by Ofsted, and we are looking for a strong leader who has the vision, expertise and experience to lead the school onto its next phase and beyond. They will be passionate about helping every pupil to achieve their potential and ambition, whilst leaving no child behind and will hold safeguarding central to all the systems, processes and strategies at school.
Arranging a visit to Lotus School
To arrange a visit and increase the chance of a successful application email admin@seteducation.org.uk.
School location
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