Assistant Subject Leader of English (Rhetoric Whole School and KS5 Lead)

We are seeking to appoint an outstanding professional to assist the Subject Leader of English (Assistant Headteacher) in leading a strong, stable and creative subject team, which is committed to achieving excellent outcomes for all our students and developing in students a real passion for the subject. Applicants will have excellent inter-personal skills and should be highly respected teaching practitioners who have already begun to demonstrate effective leadership characteristics. 

The successful candidate will contribute to a key area for whole-school improvement by leading on the development of rhetoric across the school, ensuring that it has a whole-school profile.  We want our Year 7 - 13 students to have the skills to be able to speak confidently in a variety of situations so that they are prepared for life beyond school. Our aim is also for staff to become knowledgeable about and confident in teaching spoken language. Rhetoric is a popular subject with our students and is currently taught as a discrete, fortnightly lesson to Years 7 & 8 by members of the English Department. Under the direction of the Subject Leader, the work of the Rhetoric Lead will include reviewing and writing schemes of work, delivering staff training and planning opportunities for students to use their rhetoric skills in extra-curricular activities.

Under the direction of the Subject Leader, and as Key Stage 5 lead, the successful candidate will also coordinate the work of the KS5 teachers: leading on sharing good practice around teaching and learning and production of resources; tracking the progress of KS5 students; and planning extra-curricular activities to include trips and enrichment activities.

The English Department

 The English team works collaboratively to share good and innovative practice and has a relentless focus on ensuring that teaching and learning is effective across the department.  The department’s clear vision for excellence has ensured that for the past three years progress made by students for English Language and Literature A Level and GCSE has been in line with or above national average. In April 2019, Ofsted noted that ‘particularly strong practice was seen in English’ around teaching and learning.

The team currently consists of nine full-time teachers with a range of experience and expertise and is also supported by two English HLTAs who provide literacy support for students both in the classroom and through small-group intervention.  We are extremely fortunate to have six examiners for AQA within the department, 

with five staff marking GCSE English Language or Literature and one marking English Language A Level.

In Years 7 – 11, students are grouped according to ability.  The department follows detailed and challenging schemes of work at KS3, 4 and 5 which are reviewed regularly to ensure that they meet the needs of our students.  These are placed on the shared network drive together with all relevant resources.

Year 11 follow the AQA specifications for both English Language and English Literature.  At GCE Advanced Level, students follow the AQA English Language and OCR English Literature specifications.  The success of the department at Key Stage 4 means that English continues to be a popular choice for study at A Level which is reflected by the large numbers of students who choose to study the subject at this level. 

The English team runs a number of enrichment activities such as GCSE after-school support, short-story and poetry competitions, weekly book clubs and events on World Book Day.  We regularly take students to the theatre to see texts in performance.