Finance Assistant (part time)

Villiers High School, or Southall County School as it was known in its inaugural year, has stood the test of time. The school opened to its 54 pupils September 14th, 1907 under its first Headteacher, Mr Sam Pollitt, in the then relatively new suburb of Southall. Over one hundred years later, under the Headship of Mr Christopher Richards, it continues to enjoy a reputation for success but is now fully inclusive and serves a vastly different population of just under 1500 pupils.

Our 150 teaching and support staff do an excellent job of educating our pupils each year and, although we are larger than the England average, we are smaller than many local High schools. This makes us the right size to offer a full range of subjects taught by specialist teachers whilst retaining a small family-style supportive environment in which we get to know every child.

We are situated in the heart of Southall, just a short walk from the Elizabeth line and a stop on the Super Loop which connects us with the best that London can offer. We like to think of ourselves as the beating heart of the community as we work closely with community partners and support and celebrate our locality. We teach our pupils to be active citizens and to aspire to great things for themselves and their community; you will often see students involved in projects to improve the local area such as planting projects and litter-picking as well as working with local councillors to help shape the future of the area.

We invest heavily in extra-curricular opportunities such as clubs and activities to help our pupils discover their passions as well as organising an impressive number of trips and visits with the aim of enriching and inspiring them. We feel it is important for the pupils to go beyond their comfort zones learning about the best the world can offer so they can make it an even better place than they found it.

The majority of the school is housed in a beautiful Grade 2 listed building and, whilst honouring our past, we have undertaken a comprehensive refurbishment plan to upgrade all classrooms and IT facilities. Our newly refurbished school theatre allows us to perform at a very high standard, and we regularly welcome lettings of this impressive venue. We look forward to the start of our Eco building very soon; this state-of-the-art ecological build will consist of three storeys with brand new Science and Computer Science laboratories, exhibition and conference space, an ecological garden and in spite of this, will be carbon neutral.

Sustainability is very important to us at the school, and we encourage all staff and students to find an environmentally friendly way of getting to and from school, reduce our reliance on single-use plastics, waste less and recycle more. We expect to see our school values of Honesty, Equity, Aspiration, Respect and Tenacity in action in our pupils' and staff's daily lives therefore our policies, procedures and approaches in the classroom are honed to develop these on a daily basis.

Perks of working at Villiers

We have a huge suite of professional learning opportunities in school and use our appraisal system combined with staff aspirations to construct this. Staff are encouraged and supported financially to become examination markers and to carry out extra qualifications such as the NPQ* suite, Master’s Degrees and Doctorates. All teams belong to their professional subject association in order to continue developing their subject knowledge and pedagogy. Middle and Senior Leaders regularly meet with their counterparts from other schools in the local authority to collaborate and share best practice as part of the Ealing Learning Partnership. *National Professional Qualifications

On Thursdays staff finish teaching early so they can meet, plan and learn collaboratively with their departments and pastoral teams. The majority of evening events, such as parents’ evenings, take place on Thursdays so that staff only ever have to plan child-care or a late finish one night of the week. Where meetings or events run later in the evening we provide a meal for all staff. Staff meetings take place on a Tuesday after school for one hour.

At Villiers we have marking and planning week every half-term where no meetings are scheduled and staff can make sure they are up to date with their planning and marking or use the time as they wish with their departments.

We do not grade lessons and all visits to lessons are formative. Heads of Department lead on the quality assurance process focusing on strengths and areas for development collaboratively.

Staff work with their performance manager to set targets which will see them develop over the course of the year but none of them rely on arbitrary unreliable data or one-off snapshot lesson visits and performance-related pay has been removed.

Staff (and pupils!) are entitled to a free social breakfast every Friday in our canteen and free tea and coffee making facilities are available throughout the day in the staff room. There is also an on-site coffee shop with a professional barista serving a variety of delicious hot and cold beverages and snacks.

Staff can take on extra duties and are paid to do this as well as receiving a free meal.

A range of opportunities to support staff's mental and physical health is on offer throughout the year such as our free Personal Training sessions. Staff are able to access counselling free through our Employee Assistance Programme if and when the need arises and there is a complete staff and pupil mental health plan in action which is reviewed regularly.

Pupils’ behaviour is exemplary (as can be seen from our recent Ofsted report in May 2019, echoed in our short inspection in 2025) so you are able to share your passion for your subject with the pupils rather than having to zoo-keep!

Our Early Career teachers’ programme has been highly commended by the local authority and is personalised to the needs of every teacher. We recognise that staff will join us having had very different experiences and with different areas to work on in their practice, so we make sure our programme reflects this. One fear new teachers often have is that they will get given all of the ‘horrible’ groups that no one else wants. First, we have no horrible groups (!) and second, our Heads of Department work hard to create a timetable which develops all staff’s skills so you will often see ECTs team teaching with more experienced practitioners to develop their understanding of GCSE and A level before they become fully accountable for the results.

We welcome a broad range of Initial Teacher Training programmes at school from Teach First to PGCE. Our Associate Assistant Headteacher oversees all programmes and these are personalised to the needs of the programme and the individual.

We are located about 7 minutes’ walk from Southall train station (on TFL Rail) or a short bus journey on the Super Loop or the 217 from Ealing Broadway (Central line). There is free bicycle storage, some staff parking available on site and staff showers are available should you wish to jog in as several of our staff do.

Our staff room was renovated in 2019 and has very energy efficient and modern kitchen facilities as well as comfortable seating and a work area with several computers and a photocopier/printer. The sixth form area and Design Technology areas were also renovated in the same year and boast state of the art learning facilities. In 2023 our historic school theatre was renovated and, whilst retaining its rich history, is now able to properly showcase our performing arts with state of the art A.V. facilities. Through this project, we were also able to create the Heritage Room, an additional meeting and conference space with its décor firmly focused on remembering where we’ve come from. Future plans include significantly updating our sports facilities, play areas and a brand-new building rated BREEAM Excellent.