What skills and experience we're looking for
What we are looking for:
We are incredibly excited about our growth journey and continued quest for excellence. We seek an executive who shares this vision with us and is able to lead and develop our Trust to support our academies deliver outstanding education and ensure financial rigour.
Our quest for excellence, must also be combined with our unwavering commitment to care and support. Therefore, anyone seeking appointment to this role must demonstrate warmth, humour, resilience, and above all, emotional intelligence in order to uphold the values of our Trust.
Please see the Person Specification and Job Description for more detailed information.
What the school offers its staff
What we can offer you...
As you can imagine, Northampton Free School Trust is at an exciting stage of its journey. With Trust growth, there is an exponential amount of potential to develop professionally and personally.
Our school coaching policy promotes a supportive and encouraging work environment to all staff in achieving their own goals and professional development.
We can offer you:
• Professional challenge and development
• Freedom to innovate and significantly contribute
• An exciting and conscientious working environment
• Reprographics and IT support
• LGPS pension scheme
Wootton Park School rated as ‘Outstanding’ by Ofsted
We are delighted that our school received the top grade in all five inspection categories of its first Ofsted report: overall effectiveness, leadership and management, behaviour and safety of pupils, quality of teaching, achievement of pupils and early years provision.
Ofsted praised the school for its outstanding leadership: “The principal, together with senior leaders and governors, leads with unapologetic ambition and an unwavering determination to secure the highest possible standards of education and well-being for pupils and staff".
Inspectors also noted that “The quality of teaching, learning and assessment is of a consistently high quality” and that “Achievement is outstanding in the early years and at key stages 1 and 3".
"Staff morale is exceptionally high" Ofsted 2019.
Further details about the role
This is an exciting time for the Trust as we realise our ambition to build on our existing outstanding school, Wootton Park School and develop the Trust to include additional outstanding schools in Northampton and the surrounding areas. Northampton Free School Trust currently comprises of two schools with a third proposed for 2027.
The role:
We are seeking a Chief Financial Officer to take the lead on Trust Finances. The position will report directly to the Chief Executive Officer and will take a seat within the Executive Leadership Team alongside Academy Heads, the Chief Operating Officer and Trust Executive.
The position will enjoy the full support and professional challenge you need to succeed and will report into the full Trust Board and the Finance and Resource committee on a regular basis.
This position will also lead and line manage a finance team, which currently consists of three part-time Finance Assistants and a Finance Manager.
The Trust in its current position on its journey of growth, is open to discussing flexibility of hours and an agile working pattern that considers attendance at the Trust/Academy office and use of Teams. It is acknowledged that as the Trust grows, so will the role. Any part-time hours will likely grow incrementally with the needs and demands of the role.
Commitment to safeguarding
Our school is committed to safeguarding and promoting the welfare of children and young people and expect all staff and volunteers to share this commitment. In accordance with our statutory obligations under Keeping Children Safe in Education Northampton Free School Trust is required to conduct an online search as part of our due diligence on shortlisted candidates and offer of a position is subject to receiving satisfactory references and an enhanced DBS Disclosure. Please note we do not accept CVs and references will be applied for at the shortlisting stage. Our latest Safeguarding Policy is on our school website.