Head of Department: Art & Photography

We are looking to appoint a highly capable Head of Art to lead an enthusiastic and supportive department. This post provides an exciting career opportunity for an ambitious and inspirational candidate who would like to further develop their career as part of our dynamic and highly effective middle leadership team. The ideal candidate will be an excellent Art teacher seeking to take the step into Middle Leadership, or an experienced Head of Department looking for a new challenge. The successful candidate will have excellent subject knowledge, strong classroom management skills and the ability to inspire our pupils and staff with engaging teaching and leadership.

The school places great emphasis on learning and achievement and, as such, the successful candidate will have a track record of excellent teaching and examination results alongside an ability to mentor, coach and lead others.  

Testbourne Community School, an 11-16 comprehensive school with an extremely able cohort, is an Outstanding School (Ofsted 2010) which provides a forward thinking, outward looking and vibrant learning environment. We pride ourselves on the strength of staff and student relationships and we have a strong community at the heart of our ethos. Our shared philosophy is embodied by our strapline ‘Achievement, Excellence, Integrity.’ 

We highly value our staff and expect teaching staff to exercise their professional judgement in how they teach. We are dedicated to professional learning and you will be supported to develop into a highly competent teacher with a deep understanding of effective teaching strategies. To get a sense of what it’s like to be part of our team, please see the ‘Working for Us’ section on our website.  

Testbourne is a high performing school, with students achieving our highest results on record in the summer 2022. 85% achieved a ‘standard’ pass of grade 4 and above in English and Maths combined. Almost a quarter of students achieved the top grades, 9-7, in both English and Maths. A staggering total of 135 grade 9s were achieved by our year 11s across their subjects.

 The successful candidate will:

•  be an excellent teacher of Art and Photography;
• be passionate about Art and photography and engaging students in the subjects;
• have a passion for learning and teaching and be committed to raising standards across the department;
• be forward thinking and keen to develop as a practitioner;
• be willing to develop extra-curricular creative activities;
• have fantastic subject knowledge and be passionate about helping all students, including the most able, appreciate Art and understand how to succeed in the subject;
• be able to inspire others to ensure the delivery of high-quality learning experiences for our students; 
• have fantastic subject knowledge and understand how to teach highly challenging lessons so that students can reach the top grades in the subject;
• have wide and deep knowledge and understanding of the specifications in Art and the implications these have for pedagogical practice in the department;
• have extremely high expectations of themselves and others;       
• be committed to ongoing professional development in order to develop as a strong middle leader and beyond.