Head of Year

Didsbury High School, Manchester, M20 2ET

28 days remaining to apply

• Job start date

  1 June 2026

• Closing date

  20 April 2026 at 9am

• Date listed

  23 March 2026

Job details

• Job role:
  • Teaching assistant
• Visa sponsorship: Visas cannot be sponsored
• Key stage: Key stage 3, Key stage 4, Key stage 5
• Working pattern: Full time
• Contract type: Permanent
• Full-time equivalent salary: £31,104 - £35,012 (Actual Salary)

Head of Year job summary

We are looking for an exceptional, student‑focused Head of Year to join our pastoral leadership team. This is an exciting opportunity for a motivated and caring professional who is passionate about helping young people thrive - academically, socially and emotionally. As Head of Year, you will lead the pastoral provision for your year group, ensuring every student is supported to meet our high expectations. You will work closely with tutors, teaching staff, parents/carers and external agencies to remove barriers to learning and create a positive culture where all students can succeed.

If you would like to join our Laurus family in a rewarding role that changes the lives of our pupils by empowering them to become the best that they can be then we would love to hear from you. 

This position is contracted on a 37 hours per week + 10 plus days, Term Time Only. This means you will mainly work when the school is open to pupils and will not need to work during the school holidays unless the contract requires you to do so.

Job Purpose 

• Undertake personnel management duties including instructing and training year-group Form Tutors.
• Manage the relevant year group including pastoral support, achievement, attendance, attainment/progress, behavioural issues and intervention and child protection matters.
• Establish positive relationships with parents, staff and outside agencies in line with the schools’ vision and values.

Key Skills & Experience

• Sound educational background including GCSE’s in Maths and English (A*-C) or equivalent.
• Recent management experience with people.
• Evidence of work with children/young people and involvement with parents.

To learn more about what the Trust offer, including our wide range of employee benefits and access to further professional learning, visit our Careers page. At the Laurus Trust, we value the significance of a healthy work/life balance for our employees.  Achieving a better balance can boost motivation and morale, lower stress levels, enhance performance and productivity, and make job opportunities more inclusive. Whenever feasible, we are committed to offering flexible arrangements from the very start, which could include options like part-time roles, term-time working, Job-sharing and compressed hours.

Please note a full application must be submitted as CV’s will unfortunately not be accepted in line with our safer recruitment process. 

We reserve the right to interview prior to the closing date.

Disability Confident Employer

We value diversity and are committed to equal opportunities. We are an inclusive employer and welcome all applications. Disabled candidates who meet the minimum criteria on the person specification will be guaranteed an interview. If you require any reasonable adjustments for an interview, please highlight this to our Recruitment Team in advance.

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

The Laurus Trust is an inclusive Equal Employment Opportunity employer that considers applicants without regard to gender, gender identity, sexual orientation, race, ethnicity, disabled or veteran status, or any other characteristic protected by law. We welcome and encourage applications from all individuals regardless of individual background or circumstance.

As a Disability Confident Committed Employer, we strongly encourage applications from all persons with a known disability, and we will ensure that a fair and proportionate number of disabled applicants, that meet the minimum criteria for a role, will be offered an interview and given the opportunity to demonstrate their skills.

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 Didsbury High School

• School type: Free School, ages 11 to 18
• Education phase: Secondary school
• School size: 1181 pupils enrolled
• Age range: 11 to 18
• Ofsted report: View Ofsted report
• School website: Didsbury High School website
• See more jobs: teaching-vacancies.service.gov.uk/organisations/didsbury-high-school

Didsbury High School is a secondary free school for 11-18 students in South Manchester. The school is run by the Laurus Trust and replicates the outstanding education already provided by the Trust’s founder school, Cheadle Hulme High School (CHHS), based in Stockport. CHHS is a hugely oversubscribed school and was recently named as one of the UK’s top-performing schools in The Sunday Times, ranking as the 15th non-denominational comprehensive school in Manchester and the North West in the annual Parent Power Survey for 2022 and this year, was awarded ‘Northwest Comprehensive School of the Year 2024’.

Didsbury High School is the most oversubscribed first preference school in Manchester, we are a non-selective, non-denominational school, which opened in September 2019. We currently have students in Years 7 to 11 along with our brand-new sixth form that opened in September 2023 with students now in Year 12 and 13! We currently have approximately 1200 students on roll.

The 2024-25 academic year saw Didsbury High Schools second set of GCSE results. 61% of students achieved at least a grade 5 or above in both English and Maths and 80% of achieved at least a grade 4. On top of this, almost 40% of the schools' grades were grade 7 or higher demonstrating outstanding academic performance across a broad range of subjects. The summer of 2025 also saw Didsbury Sixth Form celebrate our first cohort of students receive their A Level results. An impressive 100% of students passed their A Levels, marking a hugely successful debut year for the Sixth Form. A third of all grades were A or A*, with 93% of students achieving high grades (A*-B). In total, almost two-thirds of all grades awarded were A*-B, and the average grade across all entries was a B. We could not be prouder of our classes of 2025!

Our students have access to state-of-the-art facilities in a brand-new building behind Didsbury Point. Didsbury is a suburban area of Manchester, 4.5 miles south of Manchester City Centre. The location enjoys the advantages of proximity to the open countryside of Cheshire and the Peak District, strong transport links and the cultural and sporting activities of a major city.

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