Teacher of Music - One Year Fixed Term Contract
Monk's Walk School, Welwyn Garden City, Hertfordshire, AL8 7NLThis job expired on 24 October 2024 – see similar jobs
Job start date
22 April 2025
Closing date
24 October 2024 at 12pm (midday)
Date listed
10 October 2024
Job details
Job role
Visa sponsorship
- Visas cannot be sponsored
Key stage
- Key stage 3, Key stage 4, Key stage 5
Subject
- Music
Working pattern
- Full time (Can be done as a job share): Full Time, Monday to Friday, 32.5 hours per week.
Contract type
- Fixed term - One year - Maternity or parental leave cover
Pay scale
- Teachers' Pay Scale
What skills and experience we're looking for
Job Purpose
- To ensure that students fulfil their potential in the classes you teach
- To support the school in keeping all students safe
- To oversee pastoral care and support the progress of your tutor group
- To contribute to the effectiveness of the teams in which you work (departmental, year group, house)
- To contribute to the musical life of the school
- To support the school’s aim of providing an enjoyable educational experience for its students.
PRINCIPAL ACCOUNTABILITIES:
Planning, Teaching and Class Management
- To prepare and teach lessons of a high standard so your students make expected or above expected progress
- To follow designated programmes of study
- To set homework in line with school and departmental policy
- To ensure that your students’ behaviour is conducive to learning.
Monitoring, Assessment, Recording, Reporting
- To follow designated programmes of study, carry out all assessments and marking, recording, reporting and target setting in line with departmental and school policy.
Pastoral Duties
- At all times ensure that your students are subscribing to school policies in terms of behaviour, appearance, academic work and social interaction and follow the guidelines given in the staff handbook if any pupil is infringing these policies
- To adhere to the school’s requirements on safeguarding at all times.
Other Professional Requirements
- To be able to lead at least one extra-curricular activity, preferably orchestral
- Work as a team member within the department, sharing ideas and resources and asking for guidance and help from fellow teachers when necessary.
- Participate in all CPD activities that will improve your professional performance
- To take part in the school’s appraisal process and enter into a professional discussion with your line manager about your strengths as a teacher and any areas which are in need of improvement
- Address any areas of weaker performance, taking advice from your line manager and actively engaging in any actions that might be suggested
- To maintain, at all times, the reputation of this great profession and of the school.
Resource Management
- To take a shared responsibility to ensure the accommodation in which teaching takes place is vibrant and conducive to learning
- To ensure that all department resources used are kept in good order and any defects are quickly reported to the Head of Department.
What the school offers its staff
Employee Assistance Programme including a free 24/7 confidential support helpline
Support with your professional development
Salary Sacrifice Schemes including Bike to Work and Tech Scheme
Wellbeing INSET Days
Free Onsite Parking
Free Tea and Coffee for all Staff at Break Time
Commitment to safeguarding
Safeguarding at Monk’s Walk takes precedence over any other activity in the school. It’s vitally important to us that students feel safe in school so they can learn and thrive. As part of the recruitment process, we will ask about safeguarding students and obviously questions about candidates’ suitability to act as tutor. References will be sought and an enhanced criminal records check will be undertaken for this position.
Upload additional documents
If you need these documents in an accessible format, please contact the school.
About Monk's Walk School
- School type
- Academy, ages 11 to 18
- Education phase
- Secondary
- School size
- 1421 pupils enrolled
- Age range
- 11 to 18
- Ofsted report
- View Ofsted report (opens in new tab)
- School website
- Monk's Walk School website (opens in new tab)
- Email address
- recruitment@monkswalk.herts.sch.uk
We are a mixed school of about 1,400 11-18 year old students in Welwyn Garden City, a Hertfordshire new town on the outskirts of London. Transport links are superb – direct rail links to London in less than 30 minutes; M1, A1(M), M11 and M25 all minutes away. WGC is a pleasant place to live – it even has John Lewis! The school is situated in a greenbelt area in the prosperous northwest corner of the city. Our grounds are magnificent and the view from the school is lovely. In September 2020 we opened a new teaching block to replace one of the more rundown ones. The DfE have just agreed funding for a new sports hall for the school.
Monk’s Walk is a genuinely all-ability school. The number of students with learning challenges is in line with the national average, with 17% supported at SEN Support or with an Education and Healthcare Plan (EHCP). Our support for students with SEND is a real strength of the school.
We have a small number of blind or partially sighted students who receive specialist support. We also work very closely with Knightsfield School, a special school for deaf children on our campus.
Parental confidence in the school is high; there were 729 applications for 240 places in Year 7 for September 2024, with 197 of those as first preference. Each year we hear appeals for students wishing to join the school.
The school has an extremely effective behaviour policy and in general behaviour is very good indeed. Our students want to learn and our parents are, on the whole, extremely supportive. Attendance is high, although in common with most schools affected by COVID. Our aim is for our students to be co-operative, courteous and kind.
There is a genuine ‘buzz’ around the school and we have a very strong reputation in the city. In September 2023, the school was judged by Ofsted to be ‘good’. We were really pleased with the comments made by inspectors and expect the report to be published any day now.
GCSE exam results in 2024 were very good. 53% of students gained the strong basics (grade 5+ in both English and Maths) and 74% standard basics (grade 4+ in English and maths). Our attainment 8 was 50.2 and progress 8 +0.25. All well above national. Students of all abilities did better than would have been expected, given their starting points. Disadvantaged students made the progress that would have been expected given their starting points – unlike in most other schools in Hertfordshire where it is often well below. Students with SEND did phenomenally well. To look at the school’s provisional results in the league tables google ‘school performance tables 2024’.
In terms of progress, disadvantaged and SEND students do better in the school than they do nationally. BAME students attain very well and have good progress, as do each of the ability groups. We pride ourselves on the fact that Monk’s Walk is an inclusive school.
The school has about 268 in the sixth form and this is the largest sixth form the school has ever had. We are also a member of a consortium with four other schools which provides a wide range of opportunities for students. Monk’s Walk has the largest sixth form of the five schools and currently we have 82 guest students in Year 12 and 61 in Year 13. At Monk’s Walk we concentrate on providing A Level only (with the exception of iMedia), with decent numbers of students studying the facilitating subjects. Vocational programmes can be taken at Oaklands College or in other consortium schools.
A Level results in 2024 were also very good , with average point score per grade at 36.2 equivalent to B-. In 2024 almost all students who applied made it to their first or second choice university, high quality apprenticeship or employment. Students access a range of universities, with over 40% accessing Russell Group in 2024. We currently have 11 former students at Cambridge University.
We do not pursue academic achievement at the expense of the wider development of the individual, however. Form tutors, heads of year and heads of house all have important roles in the social, personal and academic support of individuals. Our house system is strong, providing a range of all-ability competitions and activities for mixed age groups. Recently we have become the first school in the country to have a recycling machine with the credit going as house points. All members of staff are allocated a house.
Unfortunately, some schools are making cuts in creative subjects such as Art, Music, Drama and PE and even some DT specialisms. At Monk’s Walk, these subjects are strong as we see these areas providing important learning opportunities for our students. All of these subjects are running at GCSE and A Level. Science subjects are among the most popular subjects at A Level.
We have a full orchestra (as well as other musical groups), thriving Art, Music, PE and Sport and an outstanding Drama department. Members of other departments involve themselves in extra-curricular activities in Music, Sport and Drama.
Knightsfield School (a special school for deaf children) is co-located with Monk’s Walk School. We have an outstanding partnership arrangement; at key stage 3 Knightsfield students join classes in Art. A few students are also integrated into GCSE groups. Knightsfield students join ours for lunch every day in our canteen in B Block. One of our music teachers teaches at the school.
The school became an academy in September 2012. The decision to convert was purely pragmatic and trustees have no intention to make changes to teachers’ pay and conditions beyond those made as part of national agreements.
Induction, training and continuing professional development have a very high priority in the school. All staff have an induction programme on joining the school.
Arranging a visit to Monk's Walk School
To arrange a visit and increase the chance of a successful application email recruitment@monkswalk.herts.sch.uk.
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