Contract type: Full Time
Salary: L10- L16 (Dependent upon suitability and experience)
Contract term: Permanent
Location: Poppy Field School, Widnes, WA8 6DH (part of Hopedale Children & Family Services)
Hopedale Children and Family Services Limited is a group of special schools providing exceptional, holistic education and therapy to children from 3 – 19 with a range of complex social, emotional and mental health difficulties, cognitive impairment and/or aspects of autism spectrum disorder.
The Head of School will provide professional leadership and be responsible for the day-to-day efficient management of Poppy Field School, thus ensuring a high-quality education for all the pupils on roll.
The Head of School will support the Executive Head and Proprietorial Group to build and nurture outstanding educational provision.
Designated Safeguarding Lead: to take lead responsibility for safeguarding and child protection.
Qualities and Knowledge
1. Hold and articulate clear values and moral purpose, focused on providing a world-class education for the pupils they serve.
2. Demonstrate optimistic personal behaviour, positive relationships and attitudes towards their pupils and staff, and towards parents, governors and members of the local community.
3. Lead by example - with integrity, creativity, resilience, and clarity - drawing on their own scholarship, expertise and skills, and that of those around them.
4. Collaborate and work in partnership with other agencies in providing for the academic, health, social, emotional, spiritual, moral and cultural well-being of children and their families.
5. Promote and model good relationships with parents/carers which are based on partnership to support and improve children’s achievement and promote parenting skills generally.
6. Sustain wide, current knowledge and understanding of education and school systems locally, nationally and globally, and pursue continuous professional development.
7. Work with political astuteness, within a clear set of principles centred on the school’s vision, ably translating local and national policy into the school’s context.
8. Communicate compellingly the school’s vision and drive the strategic leadership, empowering all pupils and staff to excel.
9. Ensure that any external charter-marks are fully embedded and are contributing to school improvement.
10. Ensure that the school presents a coherent and accurate account of its performance to a range of audiences including the Local Authority, Proprietorial Body, OFSTED, parents and carers and the local community.
Pupils and Staff
1. Demand ambitious standards for all pupils, overcoming disadvantage and advancing equality, instilling a strong sense of accountability in staff for the impact of their work on pupils’ outcomes.
2. In partnership with the Principal, secure excellent teaching through an analytical understanding of how pupils learn and of the core features of successful classroom practice and curriculum design, leading to rich curriculum opportunities and pupils’ well-being.
3. Establish an educational culture of ‘open classrooms’ as a basis for sharing best practice within and between schools, drawing on and conducting relevant research and robust data analysis.
4. Create an ethos within which all staff are motivated and supported to develop their own skills and subject knowledge, and to support each other.
5. Identify emerging talents, coaching current and aspiring leaders in a climate where excellence is the standard, leading to clear succession planning.
6. Hold all staff to account for their professional conduct and practice.
7. Ensure staffing structures reflect the needs of the school and roles and responsibilities are clear to all stakeholders.
8. Work with the Principal and Leadership team to recruit and retain a high quality staff team.
9. Implement, and sometimes create, policies which impact on outstanding practice and are understood and implemented by all stakeholders.
10. Ensure the learning experiences for children and young people at the school and partnerships are linked into and integrated with the wider community.
Systems and Process
1. Ensure that the school’s systems, organisation and processes are well considered, efficient and fit for purpose, upholding the principles of transparency, integrity and probity.
2. Provide a safe, calm and well-ordered environment for all pupils and staff, focused on safeguarding pupils and developing their exemplary behaviour in school and in the wider society.
3. Establish rigorous, fair and transparent systems and measures for managing the performance of all staff, addressing any under-performance, supporting staff to improve and valuing excellent practice.
4. Welcome strong governance and actively support the Proprietorial Group to understand its role and deliver its functions effectively – in particular its functions to set school strategy.
5. Ensure safe working practices are adopted by staff.
6. Maintain appropriately safe premises/work areas for all staff, pupils and visitors to the school site.
7. Ensure all annual reports, reviews and pupil IEPs are of a high quality and meet statutory frameworks.
8. Ensure that there is a strong and constant focus on maintaining and improving levels of attendance.
9. Manage organisational change effectively.
The Self-improving School System
1. Create an outward-facing school which works with other schools and organisations - in a climate of mutual challenge - to champion best practice and secure excellent achievements for all pupils.
2. Develop effective relationships with fellow professionals and colleagues in other public services to improve academic and social outcomes for all pupils.
3. Challenge educational orthodoxies in the best interests of achieving excellence, harnessing the findings of well evidenced research to frame self-regulating and self-improving schools.
4. Shape the current and future quality of the teaching profession through high quality training and sustained professional development for all staff.
5. Model entrepreneurial and innovative approaches to school improvement, leadership and governance, confident of the vital contribution of internal and external accountability.
6. Inspire and influence others - within and beyond schools - to believe in the fundamental importance of education in young people’s lives and to promote the value of education.
7. Be responsible for the implementation of the school improvement plan – ensuring action plans are in place and monitored vigorously.
8. Play a key role in maintaining a self-evaluation framework which clearly identifies strengths and areas for development, in order to inform the school improvement agenda and maintain high standards.
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