What skills and experience we're looking for
Essential
Good numeracy and literacy skills - GCSE grade C or equivalent in English and Maths
Experience of working with a range of ages and abilities across KS2 – kS4
Ability to identify, plan and deliver academic interventions for a range of SEND
Understanding of the importance of supportive student/teacher relationships within a SEMH Specialist setting
Ability to communicate effectively with young people and their families
Ability to work well within a team
Knowledge of a trauma informed approach within an educational setting
Good organisational skills
Self-motivated, ability to work independently
Good ICT skills.
Willingness to develop and attend training as necessary e.g. Team Teach de-escalation training
Ability to work under pressure and react calmly to confrontation
Able to be totally confidential and discreet
A high degree of professionalism
Completion of Enhanced DBS disclosure
Desirable
A levels and Degree
Knowledge of KS2 to KS4 curriculum content
Experience of working in a special school setting
Evidence of effective relationships with young people in a SEMH setting
Evidence of good working relations with a range of people
A qualification to support a trauma informed approach
Evidence of organisational ability
Recent ICT qualification, Team Teach etc.
Evidence of meeting deadlines and ability to prioritise
What the school offers its staff
Putting your trust in our Trust
We believe in your development. Everything we do is about creating a team of committed professionals who share our ambition for young people. If you believe in this too, we are committed to providing an exciting, enjoyable and rewarding working environment.
Coaching
Coaching is integral to our success. We support colleagues through coaching; enabling deep reflection, which has allowed us to build a bold, creative and aspirational culture, where collaboration with peers and new approaches to practice are encouraged.
Personal Improvement Plan
versus Performance Management
Instead of the usual performance management, we encourage our staff to identify aspirational targets through our ‘Personal Improvement Plan’ (PIP) process. With your coach, you will look to make significant progress in a critical area of your practice; we believe in valuing the process of improvement not pass or fail numerical targets.
Health and Wellbeing Strategies
Having happy and healthy staff is key to a successful organisation. The Trust is committed to:
• providing employees with a safe, healthy and supportive environment in which to work
• recognising that the health and wellbeing of our employees is important
• providing a supportive workplace culture where healthy lifestyle choices are valued and encouraged
We believe it is important that we are role models to our students of how to be a healthy adult. We actively promote the importance of a work life balance, offering support to staff on managing stress and workload, as well as a physical activity programme. Access to coaching, counselling and supervision is also available to all staff.
Presumed Professionalism
We have a ‘Presumed Professionalism’ ethos across the Trust. Our staff are professional educators and we recognise the need to support staff to enable a healthy work life balance to allow maximum impact whilst working with our young people and each other.We achieve this by allowing staff to sign out during their free periods, as long as professional duties are not affected. See our policy for further details.
Development of Professional Capital and Excellence
As a Trust, we always look to invest in our staff and pride ourselves on our ‘home grown talent’.We pride ourselves on this and believe this has the biggest impact on how our staff understand their communities and make a difference to the lives of our young people.
Quite simply, our aim is to employ people who match our ethos and values and enable them to truly collaborate with colleagues across the Trust so that they are satisfied professionally. We provide outstanding training pathways, which draw on excellence both within and outside of our Trust to enable you to build your professional capital.
Examples of the many opportunities we encourage staff to take up externally include:
• The National Professional Qualification for Senior Leadership (NPQSL)
• The National Professional Qualification for Headship (NPQH)
• The National Professional Qualification for Middle Leadership (NPQML)
• The Outstanding Teacher Programme (OTP)
• Initial Teacher Training (ITT)
Pathways are available at apprenticeship level, ECT, aspiring middle leader, Lead Practitioner and aspiring senior leader level. Some of these courses are led by staff within the Trust and others, are externally accredited. In addition, the Trust provides the opportunity of becoming an associate SLT member, enabling middle leaders to gain insight and experience of leadership at the highest level within a school.
Support staff have their own Personal Improvement Plan that they use as a tool to create a bespoke professional development plan. All support staff also receive Coaching and training opportunities, in order to help them feel empowered and in charge of their own development.
Across the Trust, we pride ourselves on equal opportunities for all staff, irrespective of background, gender, disability, religion, sexual orientation or age.
Great access to progression and leadership responsibility
Further evidence of our investment in ‘home grown talent’ is that 86% of our TLR holders have been internal appointments. We have clear professional progression pathways within the CPD offered throughout the year at all levels within the Trust.
Collaboration across all schools
We are developing relationships across our Trust to enable collaboration to support learning and teaching outcomes. In addition, we are able to offer a joint CPD programme to draw upon expertise across the Trust. Staff work and meet regularly in teams across schools in the Trust and we hold an annual Strategic Planning Day, where each member of the Trust work together.
Sabbatical and flexible working policies
We have developed a unique sabbatical policy to support staff to develop their interests. For some, this has been to develop professionally, whilst others have taken this time to experience travel with their family. See our policy for further details.
Flexible working arrangements are also promoted across the Trust where possible, to enable our staff to manage their work life and family commitments.
Strong Induction Process
It is important to us that every member of staff has the right start to working in our Trust. The importance of a good induction is invaluable for new starters irrespective of previous experience. To support this, we have a New Staff Induction Day before the start of term, which enables colleagues to get a real understanding of what the school is about and what it means to be part of the Trust. This day also prepares new staff for our training (conference) days at the beginning of the Autumn term. In addition to this, ALL staff are invited to visit a series of lessons across the school year.
ECT Programme
We offer newly qualified teachers a robust, supportive and bespoke training programme, which will enable you to develop into an outstanding teacher.
Continued ECT and RQT support
Where possible we try to ensure that ECTs and second year teachers have reduced teaching loads to allow them more opportunities for CPD throughout the school week. This also allows for peer-to-peer observations and additional coaching taking place to develop their practice.
3D Networks
3D Networks are an opportunity for faculties to share good practice and new ideas with colleagues across the school, based on our unique 3D Learning and Teaching model.
Attendance of staff
Our staff are committed to their roles and ensure that students are supported to maximise their outcomes. Levels of attendance are exceptionally high across all staff and well above national averages in the education sector and beyond.
Commitment to safeguarding
‘’LiFE Multi Academy Trust is committed to safeguarding and promoting the welfare of children and expects all staff and volunteers to share this commitment. All offers of employment will be subject to a DBS check and an online search.’’