Job Description
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Thurstable School is seeking a new member of its Senior Leadership Team.
The successful applicant will join the Senior Leadership Group and will lead the Thurstable Sixth Form. Our new Senior Leader - Sixth Form will be given substantial additional non-contact time to take part in SLT leadership activities, including line managing the sixth form staff team.
This post represents an excellent opportunity for an outstanding teacher with a strong track record of improvement work as a middle leader to take their first step into Senior Leadership. Previous post holders at this level have gone on to secure Assistant/Deputy Headships, and we would expect the successful applicant to do the same within 3 to 5 years, either at Thurstable or elsewhere. Uniquely, this is a post that the successful applicant could take to Assistant Head level over time through their own highly successful leadership of the sixth form.
Thurstable Sixth Form offers a full range of academic and vocational courses, includes two Advanced Training Programmes in football run jointly with Colchester United Football Club, and is a founder member of the highly innovative VI6 programme. VI6 is a partnership including the University of Essex and five school based sixth forms offering joint teaching of A level subjects on the University campus.
Thurstable itself is a thriving, oversubscribed and highly successful 11-19 school. We offer teachers an open and supportive working environment together with effective and personalised professional development and training opportunities, teaching across the 11-19 age and ability range, a personal laptop, excellent teaching facilities, and access to extensive teaching and learning resources through our innovative E Learning Centre. As Ofsted noted in 2016 "the vast majority of staff are incredibly positive and proud to be working at Thurstable".
Information about the School
Thank you for taking an interest in joining us as at Thurstable School.
Thurstable School is an ambitious and successful 11-19 academy with 1209 students, located in Tiptree near Colchester in Essex. We are a school on a journey as seen by our excellent outcomes at KS4 in 2022 and our vision is to be a school of character and excellence. Our three guiding values are Aspire, Respect & Endeavour and our mission is to build knowledge and grow character so that as well as flourishing as scholars our students will thrive in life and be the best versions of themselves.
Why join us?
● Every minute counts and our classrooms are disruption free. To enable this we have a simple and centralised approach to behaviour centred on a warm/strict philosophy and shared routines. All detentions are centralised and overseen by senior staff. It is these routines that allow the positive student-staff relationships to flourish.
● We believe that you are the expert. We promote the importance of teacher led lessons based on brilliant subject knowledge, great explanations and skilful questioning. We are committed to helping you continue to develop your subject knowledge and pedagogy.
● We take CPD seriously and we are one of just 8 Steplab Hub schools in England for the quality of our Instructional Coaching model which is based on Rosenshine and Lemov’s Teach Like A Champion. All staff receive one to one coaching for at least and we believe in improving not proving so our appraisal process is linked to engagement in CPD not student grades.
● We are committed to staff wellbeing and adopting sensible approaches to workload. We recognise the efforts and achievements of all our staff on a weekly basis and never take anyone’s work for granted.
● We are on a journey of which you can be a driving part. Our school improvement groups, led by non-SLT members, are crucial to driving change in the school and this year played a key role in shaping our behaviour policy, uniform and staff development model.
We believe this is an exciting time to join the school and help our students reach their undoubted full potential. If you can dream big, work hard and also have a sense of fun, I genuinely believe that you will really enjoy working at Thurstable.
Our website provides a clear picture of our aspirations and our vision; however, please do not hesitate to contact us to seek further information.
We very much look forward to receiving applications from candidates whose personal qualities, values and experiences support and reflect ours. We welcome visits or conversations with prospective applicants.
We are committed to safeguarding and promoting the welfare of children and young people therefore this appointment will be subject to vetting, including an enhanced DBS disclosure.
We look forward to hearing from you soon