Head of English

St Mary Redcliffe and Temple School and the Redcliffe Sixth Form Centre (SMRT) is committed to safeguarding and promoting the welfare of children, and so safeguarding checks will be undertaken as part of the recruitment and selection process. It is an offence to apply for this role if the applicant is barred from engaging in regulated activity relevant to children. You can find a copy of our Safeguarding Policy on our website.

Mr Planter took up the Headship in September 2022 following successful headship and executive headteacher experiences in three schools. For him, the post of Headteacher remains an incredibly rewarding one. As we emerge from the greatest social and educational disruption in our lifetime there is a clear mandate and appetite to consider our practice collectively to ensure we provide the highest quality education for all our students.

SMRT is a successful and heavily oversubscribed 11-18 co-educational, Church of England, comprehensive school of over 1750 students, serving families from the whole of greater Bristol and beyond. We are located at the heart of the city and have a diverse student community with considerable parental support. Our diversity is a strength and something we celebrate. The Redcliffe Sixth Form Centre currently houses approximately 700 students from our own school and from many other schools across the City.

Our Christian ethos is at the centre of our distinctiveness and success. We believe that daily worship helps us get our priorities right. The School has a clearly identified set of values that are reflected in our pastoral and curriculum practice. The School is committed to developing students as whole people and lifelong learners. To facilitate this SMRT has developed the Alive model, which seeks to develop competencies, values, and skills in our students to support their development as ‘fully alive’ learners. The role of the tutor is key, and teachers are expected to be tutors.

At SMRT we believe that each member of our School community is created by God and our aim is to achieve our full potential (being fully alive). All we do is rooted in this hope of who we are as people and who we can become. We are particularly inspired by Jesus’ statement ‘I have come that you might have life and life in all its fullness’ (John 10 v10) and Irenaeus’ ‘the glory of God is a human being fully alive’. This is an exciting time to join SMRT as we work with renewed focus and energy to fulfil our core purpose enabling our students “to develop the skills, knowledge and Alive qualities so that all our students can make their unique contribution to the world.”

We are passionate about providing opportunity for all staff to develop. Staff are encouraged to develop leadership roles, including working with, and helping to improve, other local schools. All leaders contribute extremely well to improving teaching and learning. SMRT invests heavily and productively in ensuring that staff and leaders have every opportunity to develop their expertise for the benefit of students. Professional development for staff is extremely well planned and implemented; it is linked closely to teachers’ targets for improvement.

SMRT was judged in April 2015 to be outstanding by Ofsted in each and every category. We were also judged outstanding in our last church school (SIAMS) inspection in March 2017. Despite this there is absolutely no sense of complacency. We are a forward-looking school with a relentless focus on providing the absolute best provision so that no child is left behind.

Ofsted remarked that “Church school status makes an important and distinctive contribution to the school’s exceptionally positive values and beliefs. Leaders and the highly effective governing body ensure that students’ spiritual, moral, social, and cultural development are given the highest possible priority.” “The promotion of students’ spiritual, moral, social, and cultural education is extremely impressive and contributes enormously to the welcoming ethos of the school. Equality of opportunity is vigorously promoted; discrimination in any form is not tolerated. Students are highly reflective about matters of faith and personal responsibility; their social awareness is remarkably perceptive.”

SMRT was fortunate to be part of ‘Building Schools for the Future’ Wave 4 and we moved into a significant new block in early November 2010. This houses Music, Computer Science, Design Technology, Science, Art, English, Maths, Learning Resource Centre, PE, and staff facilities. In addition we have a sports hall, as well as a gym and a swimming pool. Humanities and Languages are housed in a refurbished 1980s building which is also the base for Year 7 students. We also have a large Sixth Form block.