Head of Creative Arts

Thank you for enquiring about this key leadership post at The Skipton Academy – we very much welcome your interest and hope the accompanying information will encourage you to apply.

The Skipton Academy is undergoing a period of rapid expansion due to the transformational change and improvements achieved over the last four years. In that time pupil numbers have increased to such a degree that we now need to expand our curriculum offer and leadership across a range of areas for September 2022, including this new, additional post of Head of Creative Arts. 

These changes have been achieved through an unrelenting focus on the academy’s ethos of ‘Belong, Challenge, Inspire’, where we expect all our staff and students to model this through their behaviours, to ensure that all our students can achieve their full potential. Our staff are fully committed to this ethos and have bought into a common goal and support each other to make The Skipton Academy a vibrant and positive place to work.

Another of our key developments was the Academy joining Moorlands Learning Trust (MLT) in December 2019, to work alongside the Trust’s founding school - Ilkley Grammar School - a large outstanding secondary school 15 minutes away from Skipton. 

Moorlands Learning Trust, Ilkley Grammar School and The Skipton Academy have a vision and values that are fully aligned, with Moorlands Learning Trust being a Multi Academy Trust that recognises and values that each school is unique. We are also a member of the Red Kite Alliance which enables us to work with a range of schools from across West and North Yorkshire to collaborate and share best practice. 

The Skipton Academy is now moving into its next phase of development, where we are also expanding our senior leadership team with two new Assistant Principal posts, as well as appointing a new Head of Maths and Head of Technology from September 2022. This is all to facilitate broadening our curriculum and to secure further improvements to ensure we are self-evaluating at “good” by the academic year 2023, prior to our next likely inspection. 

The position of Head of Creative Arts has arisen as we are seeking to expand our curriculum as student numbers increase. It has led to the exciting opportunity for a Music specialist to come and lead a new curriculum area over seeing Art and Performance as well. We are looking for somebody who is eager to come and create and grow their own Music department as well as lead improvements in the other subject areas, and an ability to contribute to the delivery of Art would be an advantage, though not a necessity.

The successful Head of Creative Arts will be an excellent practitioner who can inspire outstanding learning and progress, and who has the ambition, creativity, determination and skills to ensure that every student enjoys an exceptional creative arts education; they will have high expectations and an unwavering commitment to all staff, students and stakeholders. 

Given how crucial this next phase of our development is, we are keen to attract a candidate who fully shares our ethos and who wants to make a real difference to the lives of our students. As a small 11-16 school therefore, the role may be suited to someone currently holding a subject TLR, or an existing Head of Department seeking a new challenge, or an exceptional practitioner seeking their first leadership position, as additional leadership support and development would be available for the right candidate if required. 

In all cases, in order to ensure that we can further improve and continue to grow sustainably, post holders will benefit from additional leadership and management time in their first year to be able to have the capacity to fully evaluate and strategically develop our creative arts provision further.

This is a significant middle leadership role; as Head of Department you will lead on all aspects of creative arts teaching and will be accountable for the progress and attainment of all students within the subject areas and across the key stages. We will expect you to continue to develop a relevant, engaging and differentiated curriculum, to bring fresh ideas and have an unswerving commitment to further drive up standards.  You will lead on initiatives within creative arts and will become a key player in supporting our whole school vision where every student achieves their full potential.

You will have expert subject knowledge and a strong and positive work ethic to lead our creative arts provision so that all students achieve their full potential through consistently excellent teaching. Working collaboratively, you will be inspirational to both students and colleagues, and will be committed to sharing best practice and contributing to enrichment, intervention and the development of the department, which currently comprises one other full-time colleague and a part-time colleague.

If you have the ability to engage and enthuse our staff and students, as well as the skills, qualities and experiences to be an exceptional Head of Creative Arts, then we would love to hear from you.

Closing date for applications: 8am Monday 31 January 2022

Provisional interview date: Monday 7 February 2022

We hope to contact shortlisted candidates by email no later than Friday 4 February 2022.  If you do not hear from us by this time, on this occasion, you have been unsuccessful. 

Thank you again for your interest in The Skipton Academy. We look forward to hearing from you.

Richard McManus

Principal

Moorlands Learning Trust

Thank you for requesting details for the post of Head of Creative Arts at The Skipton Academy. This is a crucial new role at a fast-growing school, with a remit to strategically lead Music, Art and Performance at The Skipton Academy and take the school to the next level.

This role provides an exciting opportunity for a colleague to play a lead role in making a demonstrable impact to the lives of a wide variety of children at The Skipton Academy, as part of its continued improvement journey, and the successful candidate will join a talented team of leaders and colleagues both at The Skipton Academy and in Moorlands Learning Trust’s (MLT) wider network.

Our overriding aim at MLT aim is to provide an exceptional comprehensive education for students from all cohorts and demographic backgrounds, in order to ensure that individual context does not affect a student’s life chances. At MLT we are aspirational for every student within the Trust and are committed to achieving success and inspiring others to do so too. 

We highly value our staff as our biggest asset and invest in their professional development to keep ourselves at the cutting edge of educational development, with staff wellbeing also being extremely important and strategically planned for. 

This is an exciting time in the Trust’s development as MLT looks to grow further, so that we can play a wider role in the development of our region and its future generations. This will mean that as the Trust grows over the coming years, the range of professional and career development opportunities and pathways for colleagues in our Trust schools will also grow, so that we can continue to recruit and retain an exceptional workforce.

I hope you are inspired by this opportunity and want to become part of our successful, growing Trust; if you have the qualities needed to make a transformational difference at The Skipton Academy then we would be delighted to hear from you!

Helen Williams

CEO Moorlands Learning Trust