Reporting to: Head of Department
Location: Didcot Girls’ School & Didcot Sixth Form
Salary/allowances: MPS/UPS Suitable for Early Careers Teacher
Job type: Permanent, full time or part time considered (please indicate in your application).
Start date: 1 September 2025
Apply by: 8am on Monday 10 February 2025
We are looking for someone with a genuine and infectious passion for their subject, who will enthuse and engage the students they teach; someone with high expectations for all students. You will join a team of hard-working and enthusiastic teachers with a commitment to science education. If you share these values, we would love to hear from you!
The post is suitable for candidates who are able to teach KS3 Science, GCSE Science and one of Biology, Chemistry or Physics at A-level. The majority of the teaching would be in science with an opportunity to develop an understanding of the Computer Science curriculum through teaching Key Stage 3 Computer Science.
We welcome applications from experienced teachers and those new to the profession and currently in training.
For further information, please email headofscience@didcotgirls.oxon.sch.uk
Science
The science department at DGS is a dynamic and exciting place to work. The department is an enthusiastic, committed and supportive team of 17 teachers, 4 technicians and 2 Stem Co-ordinators with responsibility for trip organisation and Science club. The department leadership structure consists of the Heads of Science and Heads of Biology, Chemistry, Physics and a Key Stage 3 co-ordinator. The department is well organised, with fully resourced curricula and schemes of work across all key stages.
The department achieved excellent outcomes in 2024. Achievement on Combined Science was outstanding, with a 9-4 pass rate of 80%. Single Science 9-7 pass rates were at least 70% in each science. Achievement at A-level is consistently good and is improving year-on-year.
The department is teaching and learning focussed, with time set aside to share best practice and collaboratively evaluate and develop lesson resources. We believe that science lessons should be engaging and purposeful and we work hard to develop well-rounded scientists who are also very well prepared for their GCSE examinations.
Science students at DGS follow a carefully sequenced, knowledge-rich curriculum extending from year 7 through to 13. All students cover the same content in years 7, 8 and 9. At the end of year 9 approximately a third of the cohort is invited to take the AQA Single Science courses and will begin this programme of study in Year 10. The remainder of the cohort study AQA Trilogy: Combined Science.
Science options are very popular in Didcot Sixth Form where Biology, Chemistry and Physics lessons are taught in conjunction with teaching staff from St. Birinus school. We work collaboratively across the two sites, with shared schemes of work that are carefully designed and delivered. The science block consists of classrooms dedicated to A-level lessons. We are particularly proud of the number of girls taking A-level science; with the A-level physics groups being over 50%.
The department also provides outstanding opportunities for extra-curricular development. We have a thriving science club which runs over two nights and is incredibly well attended (over 90 girls in recent sessions). In 2019 the club won the Inspirational Science Club Award, which was presented at the House of Lords and included a trip to CERN as part of the prize. We have a very strong enrichment programme for our students including regular trips and competitions, and we enjoy strong links with the international science bases at Harwell-Oxford and Culham.
Computer Science
The Computer Science department is already well established within the school and has consistently achieved excellent examination outcomes. In 2024, 84% of GCSE students achieved a 9-4 grade and 50% achieved a 9-7 grade. The A-Level Computer Science results are similarly strong.
The department is a team of three, which is led by the Head of the maths and computing faculty, ensuring that our focus is on providing a Computing curriculum which is ambitious, coherent, and inclusive of all learners.
The department aims to provide purposeful lessons which builds upon their prior learning, allowing students to develop their skills and knowledge across Computer Science, Digital Literacy, and IT. We want to encourage students to become independent learners by solving problems and developing their own programs, which will allow them to consider taking the subject further in their studies.
The department builds their KS3 lessons using the NCCE Teach Computing curriculum, which has been written in a way that each lesson is sequenced so that it builds on the learning from the previous lesson, and where appropriate, activities are scaffolded so that all pupils can succeed and thrive.
We offer a fully resourced curriculum, with a collaborative department who continue to develop strategies and resources to ensure that the needs of all learners are met.
We are now looking to expand the department so that we can continue to offer a rich experience within the subject, as well as offering whole school enrichment projects. We are very fortunate to have connections with Oxford and Buckingham Universities, the Computing at Schools network (CAS), and we also have links with Microsoft and a range of international technological and engineering companies at Harwell Campus.
Computer Science is taught in Years 7 and 8 an hour a week, which fully embeds the three NC Computing strands from Digital Literacy, Computer Science, and IT. Our students follow a three-year KS4 programme, with GCSE Computer Science a popular choice; with two Computer Science classes being taught throughout each year for Years 9 - 11. We also offer an increasingly popular A-Level in Computer Science with our current Year 12 class being a 50/50 gender split. Both GCSE and A-Level courses follow the OCR specification.
The department is fast-paced, outward-facing and at the forefront of the school’s work on developing outstanding teaching, learning, planning and assessment strategies that support even greater success for students.
For more information regarding our school, and this position, please follow the application link below.