Head of Art and Photography

Come and join St Paul's and be a key part of our happy and successful team.

We are seeking an outstanding teacher and leader to lead our Art and Photography department. St Paul's is an innovative place to be and will support, challenge and develop you to ensure you have a positive impact on the school we love and serve.

In choosing to work at St Paul's you will become part of a supportive and highly successful team and will learn and grow with the opportunities available through our leadership of the Sussex Maths Hub and Inspire Teaching School Alliance.

We have developed an innovative use of technology where all students work online through iPads and staff can manage workload, collaboration and communication with fantastic custom in-house designed software.

St Paul’s is an 11-18 mixed Catholic comprehensive school with a total of 1120 students on roll including 270 students in the Sixth form. The College has a strong ethos and is a vibrant Christian community. We are committed to making sure we never accept second best for the students in our care and look to give them a full experience of education that supports their academic, personal and faith development.

This is summarised in our mission statement and educational vision which is:

“To provide an innovative, inspirational and Christian education which challenges, nurtures and informs our students to enable them to take their place in a changing world.”

We are proud of all that students achieve at St Paul’s and this led to us being awarded High Performing Schools Status.

Our 2019 results were:

GCSE: 82% 9-4 with English and Maths and a progress 8 score in the top 6% nationally.

A2: 60% A*-B and 88% A*-C. This is an ALPS rating of ‘excellent” over the last three years.

Over 1 in 4 students have gone on to study at Russell Group universities. This year 81% of students were offered places at their first-choice university. In the last 3 years our results at GCSE and A level have been consistently in the top 10% nationally.

Essentially these results are built on a belief that we have a duty to ensure that every student achieves their potential with us. We also believe it is essential to give our students the best opportunities to develop as learners, personally and in their faith journey.

'St Paul’s is an outstanding school where all learn, thrive and succeed together.'  Ofsted

We believe it is important to work hard to maintain and build on the current standards as well as looking to move forward and continue to improve at St Paul’s in every way.

The College moved to our current site in 2004 on the outskirts of Burgess Hill. This is situated with strong travel links from Brighton and London. This gave us the unique opportunity to develop an innovative twenty-first learning environment.  

We have worked hard to develop the highest standards of learning and teaching and have built a national reputation for using technology to enhance learning. Students have access to learning ‘anytime, anywhere’ through a scheme which looks to provide an iPad for every student to support their learning at home and school. As you can imagine this transforms the way we teach and the way students learn. 

Our approach to learning and teaching is based on the accelerated learning cycle to ensure we develop students as learners not just their understanding of subject knowledge. We believe this will develop every student as an independent learner and give them adaptable skills to ensure they can become life-long learners.

St Paul’s has led a Teaching School Alliance, Maths Hub and is a Leading Edge School. Leading the Inspire Teaching School Alliance we have worked on professional learning, leadership and raising achievement. This leads us to working extensively on ‘outreach’ work with other schools both locally and nationally. This provides a wide range of opportunities to work collaboratively with others both at St Paul’s and in our partner schools as well as developing exceptional leadership opportunities for all staff. Without a doubt it has also contributed to our development and success.

Outside the classroom there are numerous opportunities for students to take part in a very wide range of activities - drama, sport, music, exchanges, away days, Duke of Edinburgh, retreats and trips.  This includes opportunities for prayer and reflection as well as many examples of living an active faith through service, pilgrimage and fundraising.

St Paul’s is heavily over-subscribed and has built an excellent reputation in the community. We only recruit the best possible staff and have high expectations to ensure we develop the highest standards of learning and teaching. It is this “rich diet” in the classroom that engages and motivates students as well as leading to positive behaviour and an exciting learning environment. Each teacher is expected to work hard to keep up these high standards. All staff are given extensive opportunities to develop professionally and we only look to recruit and retain the best teachers. This is why any underperformance is challenged and it is because of this commitment that both staff and students really enjoy being at College each day and we can build on the current success which can never be taken for granted. We invest highly in the best opportunities for staff development. Staff at St. Paul’s tend to be young, dynamic and ambitious and there are plenty of opportunities to develop in the classroom and as a school leader. Many staff are promoted, internally or externally, very rapidly.

You will see our last full Ofsted inspection was in 2007, which definitely seems a while ago. We are confident that we used this ‘outstanding’ grading as a springboard for further development, growth and success. We need to work hard to maintain and build on the current standards as well as looking to move forward and continue to improve at St Paul’s in every way.

Are you ready to be a part of this exciting opportunity to develop the next chapter?

The ideal candidates will be energetic, enthusiastic, ambitious and excellent practitioners who are willing to be dedicated to all that we believe in at St Paul’s.  We believe St Paul’s is an exceptional place to work and we are excited at having the chance to appoint the right staff to help us move into the next chapter of our development as a College. By applying to work at St Paul’s you will have fantastic opportunities to develop professionally and gain opportunities for rapid promotion. We hope you will decide St Paul’s is the right place for you.  We look forward to meeting you and will welcome the opportunity to show you around and share why we are so proud of our school community.