Curriculum Leader for Science

Longbenton High School (LHS) is a highly aspirational, truly comprehensive and smaller than average 11-18 secondary school of around 900 students, in North Tyneside, on the outskirts of Newcastle upon Tyne. The school building is bright and modern: a new build was completed in 2016. LHS is a local authority school and part of the North Tyneside Learning Trust. We were last inspected in November 2018 and judged to be RI. Since then a new Headteacher has been appointed (2020) and we have two new Deputy Headteachers starting in 2022. Our vision is to be an excellent school for our local community; a school of first choice that students are proud and happy to come to every day.

Our school roll is growing: we are at PAN as of September 2021 in Year 7 with 180 and our 6th form growth was up 10%. We have 5 feeder schools but take from as many as 15-20 in the local area. Our intake broadly reflects most local key characteristics: majority white British (93%); broadly average in terms of prior attainment but with a high IDACI deprivation index (over-represented in categories 2-5; ⅔ live in the lowest 50% of IMDB); around 30% of students since 2018 have been FSM6. We have much higher proportions than national of EHCP / SEN K students.

We are on a journey to turn around the school: leadership vision and intent is clear and we are embedding long term change around culture, ambition and the quality of education. Our most recent Ofsted report from 2018 and IDSR from 2019 are now considerably out of date and do not reflect the school you see today. We have made great strides in leaving this behind in the last year; Centre Assessed Grades in 2021 showed the impact of recent change: overall P8 at -0.2 and 5+ and 4+ basics outcomes at 72 and 46% respectively (an increase of 10% and 6% on 2019).

We have undertaken a great deal of work since September 2020 to re-boot routines and expectations and our school values have been re-branded. A new vertical house system, new tutor programme, enrichment curriculum and staff training on protected characteristics (sexual harrassment, homophobia, racism) are all part of our recent work on character education. We have a fantastic CPD and induction offer for our staff.

LHS really is a great place to work. Our most recent staff and parent surveys highlight this: 97% would recommend the school to another parent; 93% of staff feel behaviour has improved; 100% of staff said they were proud to work at the school; 98% of staff felt that senior leaders and managers “are considerate of my well-being and do all they can to ensure the school has a motivated, respected and effective teaching staff”. Recent SDP (school development partner) reports demonstrate that we are much improved: “the senior team have a clear vision for the development of quality first teaching and what makes ‘learning brilliant’ at Longbenton High School”.

Our curriculum is traditional but we recognise the value of the arts (music, drama, art) in our timetable. We are constantly developing the options process to ensure we have the best offer we can for our students: recent changes have been an enrichment option in Year 9 and oracy/reading lessons in Year 7 and 8.

We are proud to serve our local community and want to give every student the opportunity to EVOLVE, CREATE, DISCOVER, PERFORM, and ACHIEVE in their time with us. Our ethos is based around these ‘KIDMAP’ values: ● Kindness ● Integrity ● Determination ● Manners ● Ambition ● Positivity