Executive Headteacher

Child First, Aspire, Challenge, Achieve

The Thinking Schools Academy Trust is a successful, diverse and growing Multi Academy-Trust, we are a family of schools who are stronger together. Due to recent growth and development, we are now seeking to appoint an Executive Headteacher who will oversee three schools within our Primary phase in Medway. This excellent opportunity will allow for an inspirational, consultative and strategic leader to grasp the role with a ‘hands on’ approach and lead the continuing developments of the schools through applying their outstanding vision for Primary education and improving the life chances of children across our Trust.

The Executive Headteacher will have line management responsibilities for the Headteachers in two of the Academies and act as the Headteacer in the third with the assistance of a Senior Deputy Headteacher and a Deputy Headteacher.

The successful applicant would be responsible for the following academies:

• The Gordon Children’s Academy – a newly federated large Infant and Junior, awarded ‘Good’ in a February 2017 Ofsted inspection

• Cedar Children’s Academy – the newest academy to join our Trust,a large also newly federated Infant and Junior school

• All Faiths Children’s Academy – a 1 form entry school and a founding partner of our Trust, this school also has a provision which specialising in teaching deaf children.

Our Trust currently consists of 10 schools, 6 Primary and 4 Secondary, based across the Medway and Portsmouth areas. This crucial position will be based in the Strood area of Kent, our three successful Primary schools all differ in size and are all less than a mile apart from each other.

Our mission is to “transform life chances”; at TSAT we believe education has the power to change lives and children only have one chance to get this right. To ensure all our academies focus on our mission school leaders translated our mission to core values that would be demonstrated and evident in all our Academies:

Our CEO believes that ‘In order to support our children and young people in achieving their aspirations we believe in supporting them in their thinking and their learning. This cognitive approach to teaching and learning across all our schools also means that pupils develop a common language of learning between subjects, teachers and themselves.’

Your new role:

The successful applicant will have the opportunity to work strategically across the cluster of schools as well as cohesively work with experienced Heads of School, who share the same vision for the three schools. You will be responsible for developing the leadership teams and raising standards across each school. You will be able to respond effectively to local pressures, support the CEO and TSAT Director of Primary in planning at a strategic level for KS1, KS2 and the transition into KS3.

• Talent spot potential Primary/EYFS leadership within TSAT to be nurtured and developed into future leaders

• Further develop TSAT primary schools to engage effectively with the TSAT teaching school alliance (New Horizons)

• Represent TSAT in appropriate forums/conferences/strategic meetings

• Lead and share our vision on the Thinking Schools agenda.

What you will need to succeed:

The successful candidate will bring a strong track record of educational leadership, improving attainment and achievement, demonstrating high expectations of what can be achieved for our pupils and staff. The Executive Headteacher will have an indisputable commitment to the safeguarding of our pupils and share in our vision of how a Multi-Academy Trust can drive and improve standards to ensure each pupil can reach their full potential.

We seek to appoint a highly effective communicator, who is able to build and maintain great relationships with our children, staff, parents, governors, the community and all stakeholders. The ability to manage, motivate and support our exceptionally dedicated workforce whilst maintaining a high morale and staff well-being is essential

What you’ll get in return:

The opportunity to work with happy and well behaved children who are excited about learning and work with parents who are supportive of our Trust’s values and ethos. A vast support network including the CEO, Executive team, TSAT Director of Primary, Head teachers and the Deputy heads within the Strood cluster and the wider Primary phase.

Next steps:

If you feel that you have the experience, passion and skills to succeed in this exciting new position, you share our beliefs towards improving life chances of pupils, you would like to benefit from working with an Outstanding team of Headteachers, Executives and NLEs and you are now looking for your next career move into an Executive Headship please complete our application form and apply today.

We strongly encourage any applicants who may be interested in our position contact our Recruitment Manager, Jasmin Chudasama via email j.chudasama@tsatrust.org.uk or to call 01634 303005 to arrange tours of the three Primary schools which will give you the opportunity to see the improvements and developments in the school’s first hand, and to meet our dedicated staff.