English Teacher

We are looking for either an experienced teacher or a teacher early in their career to join our highly successful and stable English department. We are in the fourth year of introducing the Ark Mastery curriculum to our Key Stage 3 students which enables students to better understand the concepts of literature and writing. Part of this approach is a weekly co-planning meeting which teachers all attend, which supports our staff in being able to continually develop their subject knowledge so as to make English more accessible to students. We place a high value on reading at Northolt High and the English team works very closely with our school Librarian, with dedicated reading lessons and closely tracked monitoring of students’ reading ages ensuring that students are supported to continuously improve their reading ages.

At Northolt High School, our vision, mission and values underpin everything that we do. Our aim is to enable our students to develop strength of character, to be articulate and confident and to secure the best academic outcomes possible. Our school vision is "committed to excellence". Our mission statement describes how we work to achieve this core aim - through "seizing opportunity, instilling ambition, realising potential". Join us and you will be welcomed by a hard-working, dedicated staff and subject team who are united in their focus on student achievement and continuous school improvement.

We work in partnership with an organisation called Sycol which supports us in ensuring that we have clear systems in place, which are developed and agreed by staff collectively. Termly innovation projects involve every member of staff, helping us to quickly and effectively share ideas whilst forging strong partnerships across the staff team. These projects ensure that systemic school improvement is embedded in everything we do whilst at the same time providing all staff members with a high quality leadership development programme.

Northolt High School is a Foundation School in the London Borough of Ealing. Ealing schools have traditionally worked very collaboratively and it is no coincidence that Ealing’s performance in national league tables is strong. Schools in Ealing have come together to form the Ealing Learning Partnership (ELP) in conjunction with the Council. This partnership provides us with a range of networks so that Northolt High School staff are able to share and develop ideas and practice with Ealing colleagues across a range of schools.

We are a relatively small school at the moment with 985 students on roll, but this number is gradually increasing as we are supporting Ealing Council by adding three additional classes onto our school roll over the course of this academic year. We also have a new building project on the horizon which we expect to make our school even more popular. We maintain a broad and balanced curriculum offer for all students. We are developing the school so that it has STEAM specialism (the ‘A’ is for Art) whilst at the same time retaining a breadth of curriculum offer for our students. Our curriculum offer includes a broad range of extra-curricular activities as all teachers offer one after school activity a week.

We will be the right school for you if you are committed to:

• Ensure outstanding progress and attainment in English KS4 and KS5 courses as required;
• Play a full part in termly innovation projects to contribute to the development of school- wide continuous improvement;
• Continue to promote the profile of your department through contributions to the wider life of the school;
• Undertaking safeguarding training as required and fulfilling all safeguarding responsibilities as outlined in the job description.

We can offer you:

• Great support and training as you develop your career;
• The opportunity to innovate and bring in new ideas to contribute towards improving our school;
• A caring and supportive professional environment, with an early finish every Friday to promote a good work / life balance;
• A thoughtful and well-structured school calendar with careful attention paid to balancing teacher workload;
• A commitment to providing high quality opportunities for you to continue your professional learning;
• A flexible approach to your career, with increasing numbers of our teachers working on part time contracts.

Our recruitment process

One of the Ealing Learning Partnership projects we have been engaged with in the last two years is a ‘No Learner Left Behind’ project to improve the outcomes of our Black Caribbean students. Informed by our work on this project, we conduct an annual analysis of the ethnicity profile of our student body. Our long term aim is to ensure that the profile of our staff group matches that of our students. At the moment, we are underrepresented in the following ethnicity groups: Arab, Asian, Black Caribbean, Black African and Traveller of Irish Heritage. We would therefore welcome applications from candidates who would classify themselves as belonging to these groups.

We are introducing a ‘blind’ selection process this year which we also hope will support us in reducing the risk of any unintended bias during our recruitment process. You will see that our application form is in two parts. Part one, which contains details about candidates’ gender, ethnicity and age, is not shared with the staff who select candidates to bring them forward to the interview stage.

A Job Description & Person Specification plus an application form can be found on our website: www.northolthigh.org.uk

If you would like to find out more about the school prior to your application, please contact Carol Gleeson, the Headteacher’s PA on the email address below.

Please email your application to the Headteacher’s PA at: cgleeson@northolthigh.org.uk 

Closing date: 9am, Friday 16 June 2023

Interviews to be held on Tuesday 20 June 2023

The school is committed to safeguarding children and safer recruitment processes are always robustly followed. Successful candidates’ appointment will be subject to safer recruitment checks and satisfactory completion of an enhanced DBS check. Further information can be found at: https://www.gov.uk/government/organisations/disclosure-and-barring-service/about