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Head of Modern Foreign Languages

Head of Modern Foreign Languages

St Mary Redcliffe and Temple School

Bristol, City of

  • Expired
Salary:
Teaching Salary plus TLR 2c (currently £6,515)
Job type:
Full Time, Permanent
Start date:
1 September 2018
Apply by:
19 February 2018

Job overview

The Role

Are you our new Head of MFL?  The post is full time and permanent and is available from 1 September 2018. The current post holder is moving to a post nearer to where they live.

The School

We are a successful and heavily oversubscribed 11-18 co-educational, Church of England, comprehensive school of over 1700 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 more than 600 students taken from our own school and from many other schools across the City.

The School is proud of its academic record, and 84% of grades were at grade C/Level 4 or above (up from 78%) this summer.  87% achieved a Level 4 or above (equivalent to a C) in English and Maths.  Sixth Form results are also outstanding with a 99% pass rate and 81% at grade C or above.  32% got A* and A grades (up 5%).  Most Sixth Form students continue on to Higher Education, including 9 taking up Oxbridge places this year.

Inspection Reports

The School was judged in January 2012 and again in April 2015 to be outstanding by Ofsted, and outstanding in our church school (SIAMS) inspection, in each and every category. Ofsted judged Leadership and Management, Behaviour and Safety of Pupils, Quality of Teaching, Achievement of Pupils, and Sixth Form Provision, all as Outstanding.

The Department

The Languages Faculty is made up of 7 staff, some of whom are part-time and some of whom have other responsibilities within the school. All are successful, committed teachers who enjoy working collaboratively and have a strong track record of high achievement and engaging teaching and learning. The subject is taught in a specialist suite of rooms with excellent ICT facilities, data projectors in every room and a dedicated ICT suite. Teaching and learning are at the heart of what we do and the team is characterised by high standards and a willingness to develop as professionals through sharing our good practice with one another in a mutually supportive environment. By using the 'wave' method, we currently teach alternate years French and German and therefore maintain diversity and equal strength between the two languages.  All students learn a second language in Year 9 and can choose which language to take to GCSE. We are open to introducing some Spanish provision to KS3/4 if that is part of the skill set of the successful applicant. The effectiveness of this approach is demonstrated by the popularity of Languages across the Key Stages and by our excellent examination results: for example, in 2017, 75% of students achieved a C grade or above at GCSE, with nearly a third of entries achieving A grades. 

The success of the department meant that we expanded our provision of languages teaching in 2014 to include Spanish at A Level, including previously a fast track GCSE course for sixth form students, and these courses attract students from other schools to our sixth form. The current Second in Department (TLR 2a) leads on Spanish, and also has responsibility for English as an Additional Language (EAL), which includes supporting students who are taking exams in their home language. The department is supported by an experienced Faculty Administrator, and we employ French, German and Spanish Foreign Language Assistants between October and May each year.

What we're looking for

This is an exciting opportunity for an appropriately qualified candidate who has the ability to teach two languages to GCSE and one language to A Level (French, German, Spanish). We are looking for someone with an enthusiasm for well thought through curriculum development and a grasp of how to help staff understand and build on students’ prior knowledge to maximise progress. We would welcome a colleague with a passion for language teaching who loves to see students of all abilities enjoying the subject, learning actively and making rapid progress. We want a reflective practitioner able to share best practice, enhance and develop existing systems and inspire a team. Ideally you would take an active role in developing extra-curricular activities, in particular language trips/visits. We are seeking to appoint a candidate with effective leadership skills who can teach across all key stages.

Find out more about the School by visiting our website www.smrt.bristol.sch.uk

Application Process

Please return your application form and your Teaching Experience Sheet by email to jobs@smrt.bristol.sch.uk

Closing date for receipt of applications is 10 am Monday 19 February 2018.

Attached documents

About St Mary Redcliffe and Temple School

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.

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Applications closed