Vice Principal - Curriculum and Quality of Education

Ernulf Academy, St. Neots, PE19 2SH

17 days remaining to apply

• Closing date

  21 April 2025 at 11:59pm

• Date listed

  1 April 2025

Job details

• Job role:
  • Deputy headteacher
• Visa sponsorship: Visas cannot be sponsored
• Working pattern: Full time
• Contract type: Permanent
• Full-time equivalent salary: £77,185.00 - £85,128.00 Annually (Actual)

Vice Principal - Curriculum and Quality of Education job summary

JOIN OUR MISSION TO BECOME ONE OF THE BEST SCHOOLS IN THE COUNTRY!

Salary: £77,185 - £85,128 p/a

Reports To: Principal

Start Date: September 2025

Contract: Permanent

Location: St. Neots, Cambridgeshire

About the Role:

We are building a team of exceptional and highly skilled leaders, committed to driving excellence and improvement in our school. If you have a deep passion for curriculum, teaching and assessment, and a proven track record of delivering impact and excellent outcomes, this could be the role for you.

As the Vice Principal: Curriculum and Quality of Education, you will have autonomy and work extremely closely with the principal to shape the future direction of the school. You will raise standards and attainment across the school, ensuring excellence in every classroom. You will play a visible role in all areas of school improvement to drive academic outcomes and foster a scholarly culture, and be respected by staff as someone who upholds the highest of standards and works hard.

Key Responsibilities:

• Boss the school and the corridors. Have a mindset of constant and continual improvement. Dismantle and rebuild things that don't work or need improving.
• Lead constant and continual improvement in the quality of education in the school. This includes curriculum, teaching and learning, assessment, timetabling, raising achievement, staff development, general standards and academic rigour etc., either directly or indirectly through line management.
• Drive continual improvements in curriculum middle leadership, as the engine room of the school, to centrally raise academic standards.
• Have a laser focus on securing excellent academic outcomes for children, ensuring their results allow them to dictate the future direction of their lives.
• Model and upholding the highest of standards and ensure others are accountable for maintaining culture, systems, routines, and standards. Robustly tackle underperformance wherever it is identified.
• Spearhead and continue to develop the culture around academic rigour and hard work.
• Line manage senior leaders and key subject areas and develop expertise within the team, especially with regards to skilful and precise enactment of the curriculum
• Be a big voice in driving strategic improvements and develop strategic priorities and plans.
• Use evidence to precisely monitor, diagnose, and evaluate the school. Use this to drive improvement.
• Be an excellent practitioner in the classroom - an example to which others aspire.

Why Join Us?

This is a fantastic time to join TEAM ERNULF on our turnaround journey. We are on a RAPID MISSION to turn our school into one of the BEST in the country! When the current leadership took over, in September 2024, Ernulf had NEVER received an Ofsted 'Good' in ANY category. In January 2025, after just one term, Ofsted rated us 'Good' in ALL categories. If our rapid improvement and ambition EXCITE you, then join us to disrupt disadvantage by transforming the education of our pupils. We are within an hour's commute of North London, Norfolk, Grantham and Rugby.

We belieive in keeping things simple. Our mantra is: WORK HARD, BE KIND. We don't just want children to attain incredible academic outcomes; we also want to help them become great people.

WORK HARD

Team Ernulf don't believe in fads. We know the biggest factor in a child's achievement is how hard they work. That is why we have sky high expectations. We have simple rules, centralised detentions, and we back our teachers - so that our classrooms are disruption-free. We do this to support our children who want to work hard and do well.

A knowledge-rich curriculum, built on ‘powerful knowledge’, underpins our teaching and learning principles. We offer a traditional approach to teaching, following evidence-based research by Rosenshine. Our pedagogy is influenced by Teach Like A Champion (TLAC). Stimulating lessons are delivered by teachers, who we back as the expert in the room.

BE KIND

Team Ernulf is WWF: warm, welcoming, and friendly. We pride ourselves on having a family atmosphere. We teach our pupils empathy and respect and have zero tolerance to bullying. A scholarly approach is at our core, but teaching pupils to be polite, considerate, and caring is just as important.

Our world-class enrichment programme takes learning beyond the classroom. In Autumn term 2024 alone, children visited Cambridge University, The British Museum, The National Gallery, RAF Hendon, Kenilworth Castle, and were on Channel 5 and BBC radio!! As well as this, every week KS3 children have the opportunity to take part in electives such as British sign language, clubbercise, building a robotic arm, chess, girls cricket, and many more!

What We Offer:

• A knowledge-rich curriculum, built on ‘powerful knowledge’ and a traditional teaching and learning approach inspired by Rosenshine and TLAC.
• Collaborative planning with centralised, shared units of work and resources.
• Disruption-free learning and a warm/strict behaviour system, including centralised detentions. We back our teachers!
• Pay above the national scales!
• 8 INSET days per year!
• Whole-class feedback over marking to reduce workload and increase impact!

Benefits:

• Health Support: Access to AXA’s 24/7 health support line for medical advice.
• Cycle to Work Scheme: Salary sacrifice deduction for bicycles and cycling accessories.
• Discounts and Savings: Access to the Blue Light Card and Costco membership.
• Enhanced Family Leave: Paid leave to support our people when they need it the most.
• Optical Care: Financial contribution to optical care for habitual DSE users.
• Life Assurance: Peace of mind for our people and their families.
• Employee Support: Access to our Employee Assistance Programme.
• Discounted Gym Membership: Available at The Gym Group with 245 locations nationwide.
• Pension Scheme: Access to the Teachers’ Pension Scheme.
• Professional Development: Continued professional development and training opportunities.
• Convenience: Free on-site parking.

Interested in Applying?

If you are passionate about education, looking for a fresh opportunity, or simply want to make a positive impact, we would love to hear from you. Take a look at the job description and candidate pack to find out more about the role and how to apply. If you want to discuss this role in greater detail or visit the school please get in touch with Sarah McCormick - sarah.mccormick@astreaernulf.org

We reserve the right to close this position early if we receive a high volume of candidates, so do not delay, apply today.

Commitment to Safeguarding and EDI:

Ernulf Academy is committed to safeguarding and promoting the welfare of children and young people. All posts are subject to satisfactory background checks, including references and enhanced DBS checks. We value diversity and encourage applications from candidates.

Commitment to safeguarding

Astrea Academy Trust is committed to safeguarding and promoting the welfare of children and young people. We expect all staff and volunteers to share this commitment. All posts are subject to satisfactory background checks including references and enhanced DBS checks.

Applying for the job

This school accepts applications through their own website, where you may also find more information about this job.

CVs are not accepted.

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.

About Ernulf Academy

• School type: Academy, ages 11 to 16
• Education phase: Secondary
• School size: 733 pupils enrolled
• Age range: 11 to 16
• Ofsted report: View Ofsted report
• School website: Ernulf Academy website
• See more jobs: teaching-vacancies.service.gov.uk/organisations/ernulf-academy

Principal’s welcome – Ernulf Academy

Welcome to Ernulf Academy, an 11-16 secondary school in St.Neots located in North Cambridgeshire. The academy is part of Astrea Academy Trust, a highly successful multi-academy trust of primary and secondary academies in Cambridgeshire and South Yorkshire.

Ernulf Academy is a school fully committed to an inclusive, comprehensive curriculum for all, which is underpinned by our five core values: scholarship, curiosity, tenacity, responsibility and respect. These values are at the heart of our vision for the school and the important qualities and characteristics we want all pupils to develop. Our pupils are encouraged to develop confidence, independence and resilience. We strive for them to be ambitious and ‘be the best they can be’, whilst being considerate, tolerant and willing to contribute positively to the wider community.

Work hard

We firmly believe in a disruption free learning environment and as such we have established nine core routines which form the basis of our academic day. A knowledge-rich curriculum, built on ‘powerful knowledge,’ underpins our teaching and learning principles. We offer a traditional approach to teaching and learning following evidence-based research by Rosenshine and Teach Like A Champion (TLAC) which lead to inspiring and stimulating lessons. Our enrichment provision aims to take learning outside the classroom and we offer an extensive range of extra-curricular activities including sporting activities, residential visits and educational experiences.

Safeguarding is at the heart of what we do and we recognise the challenges that our pupils face. Therefore, we have a dedicated pastoral team with a Head of Year and Pastoral Co-ordinator for each year group and a ‘Wellbeing’ team including our school therapy dog.

Be kind

Ernulf Academy is a friendly and supportive school, which prides itself on treating everyone as individuals and having a ‘family’ atmosphere. We teach our pupils empathy and respect, and we have a zero tolerance to bullying. A scholarly approach is at our core but enabling our pupils to have a holistic education, preparing them for life in the 21st century and becoming global citizens is just as important.

School location

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