Headteacher

Chellaston Academy, Derby, Derbyshire, DE73 5UB

13 days remaining to apply

• Start date details

  ASAP

• Closing date

  5 January 2026 at 12am (midnight)

• Date listed

  23 December 2025

Job details

• Job role:
  • Headteacher
• 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: Leadership Pay Range 29 to 35 (£103,030 - £119,350FTE)

Headteacher job summary

PURPOSE OF THE POST: 

Purpose:  

• Provide strategic leadership and vision that ensures the school delivers an exceptional educational experience, where all pupils can flourish and succeed. 
• Create and sustain an ambitious, safe, and inclusive culture where teaching, learning, and the personal development of all stakeholders can thrive.
• Lead and inspire staff to achieve excellence through effective management, professional development, and collaborative working.
• Ensure the school meets and exceeds statutory requirements, regulatory standards, and local/national accountability measures.
• Build strong, proactive relationships with students, parents, governors, staff, and the wider community to promote trust, engagement, and shared purpose.

Main Duties

1, School Culture

• Establish and sustain the school’s ethos and strategic direction in partnership with the Trust, and through consultation with local governors and the school community
• Create a culture where pupils experience a positive and enriching school life
• Uphold ambitious educational standards which prepare pupils from all backgrounds for their next phase of education and life
• Promote positive and respectful relationships across the school community and a safe, orderly and inclusive environment
• Ensure a culture of high staff professionalism

2, Teaching

• Establish and sustain high-quality, expert teaching across all subjects and phases, built on an evidence-informed understanding of effective teaching and how pupils learn
• Ensure teaching is underpinned by high levels of subject expertise and approaches which respect the distinct nature of subject disciplines or specialist domains
• Ensure effective use is made of formative assessment

3, Curriculum and Assessment

• 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 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

4, 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

5, Additional and Special Educational Needs and Disabilities (SEND)

• Ensure the school holds ambitious expectations for all pupils with additional and special educational needs and disabilities
• Establish and sustain a culture and practices that enable pupils to access the curriculum and learn effectively
• Ensure the school works effectively in partnership with parents, carers and professionals, to identify the additional needs and special educational needs and disabilities of pupils, providing support and adaptation where appropriate
• Ensure the school fulfils its statutory duties with regard to the SEND code of practice

6, Professional Development

• Ensure staff have access to high-quality, sustained professional development opportunities, aligned to balance the priorities of whole-school improvement, team and individual needs
• 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

7, Organisational Management

• Ensure the protection and safety of pupils and staff through effective approaches to safeguarding and health and safety, 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

8, Continuous School Improvement

• Make use of effective and proportional processes of evaluation to identify and analyse complex or persistent problems and barriers which 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

9, Working in Partnership

• Forge constructive relationships beyond the school, working in partnership with parents, carers and the local and wider community
• Commit their 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

10, Governance and Accountability

• Understand and welcome effective governance, upholding the obligation to give account and accept responsibility
• Establish and sustain professional working relationship with those responsible for governance
• Ensure staff know and understand their professional responsibilities and are held to account effectively
• Ensure the school effectively and efficiently operates within the required regulatory frameworks and meets all statutory duties



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 Chellaston Academy

• School type: Academy, ages 11 to 18
• Education phase: Secondary school
• School size: 1815 pupils enrolled
• Age range: 11 to 18
• Ofsted report: View Ofsted report
• School website: Chellaston Academy website
• See more jobs: teaching-vacancies.service.gov.uk/organisations/chellaston-academy

At Chellaston Academy, we believe that academic outcomes are important, and our expectation is that we will achieve national progress standards. However, we do not measure the success of our students by their examination results alone. We believe developing the whole person to be vitally important as well. Students access a balanced curriculum, and we continually strive to develop characteristics such as self-confidence, self-belief and self-esteem and make sure individual talent is recognised and nurtured.

We believe that when the school, parents/carers and students share high expectations every child will achieve great things. This includes having an excellent attitude centred on respect, high standards of appearance, good manners, full attendance and punctuality.

We believe that Chellaston Academy is a vibrant and successful school where all students thrive through our shared principles of Question, Explore, Give and Succeed.

Question – All students are given the opportunity to question who they are and why they want to be; to question their understanding and their actions. They learn how to question in a considered way, and then to listen to the response.

Explore – At Chellaston we give students opportunities and experiences, both in and beyond the classroom, educating the whole child and afforded them, looking for new ways to accomplish their goals, examining others’ values and beliefs, and exploring the world around them.

Give – At Chellaston our staff and students are expected to give their very best in all that they do; they give their time and experience to help others, always giving equal respect to all.

Succeed – We are a successful school. Success is celebrated and promoted with all members in our community. We want all of our students to succeed – individually and as part of a team – to be courageous and to succeed with good spirit and humility, developing resilience and character to succeed, even if at first, they fail.

School location

Get a job alert when similar jobs are listed

Find more school jobs in Derby and Derbyshire and Derby