Head of Geography

St Ivo is a large 11-18 comprehensive academy in the town of St Ives, Cambridgeshire. When Ofsted visited last in April 2024, they judged us to be 'Good' in all areas.

We have around 1500 students with approximately 150 in our Sixth Form. The school is 70 years old and is proud of its place within the local community. We are a truly comprehensive and inclusive academy. This is reflected in our approach to all areas of our work, from supporting students preparing for Oxbridge through to working with the most vulnerable St Ivo embraces everyone.

We are committed to a knowledge-rich curriculum and a traditional approach to teaching, behaviour and culture. We believe that schools must teach powerful knowledge, ’the best that has been thought and said’ and an ‘entitlement curriculum’ for all. We believe in explicit instruction and have been greatly influenced by Lemov’s ‘Teach Like A Champion’, Rosenshine and recent developments in cognitive science. We believe that the creation of a scholarly culture that is warm and strict, disciplined and joyful, where there is ‘purpose not power’, ensuring impeccable behaviour, where teachers can focus on teaching and students can focus on learning, underpins everything

We are values-driven and our vision is to provide an inclusive, aspirational and academic education for all our students, so that all of them will learn, thrive and lead successful lives. We are unapologetically ambitious for every child, no matter what their background, prior attainment or needs. We want to ensure that all our students have the option to be able to go to university or aspirational alternative. We are not going to reduce expectations because of a child’s background or home life, or because they are new to English or have a special education need. In fact, the opposite is true. It is our job to redouble our efforts to help children overcome these barriers so that they can flourish.

We value our staff highly and treat workload very seriously. Our systems are high leverage, ensuring you can really focus on your core purpose – teaching, in a sustainable way, unhindered by bureaucracy or poor behaviour.

What we offer

• Huge support and progression opportunities.
• A knowledge-rich curriculum, built on ‘powerful knowledge’ and a traditional teaching and learning approach built around Rosenshine and Teach Like A Champion (TLAC).
• Collaborative planning with centralised (co-developed), shared units of work and resources.
• Excellent support from Astrea central team colleagues.
• Opportunity to teach up to A Level.
• A feedback policy focused on whole class feedback and 'live' in-lesson marking only – no onerous marking policies.
• Disruption-free learning and a ‘warm/ strict’ behaviour system.
• Highly visible/ supportive senior leaders who have your back.
• Centralised detentions, including homework detentions (you do not need to organise/chase them at all).
• No formal graded lesson observations – just ongoing ‘no-stakes’ feedback loops and instructional coaching, helping you to continuously develop.
• Excellent ongoing CPD, career development and promotion opportunities across the Astrea Cambridgeshire region.
• Opportunity to complete NPQs.
• An unrivalled professional progression model.
• A very pleasant location in beautiful Cambridgeshire.

What we are looking for

• Highly effective professionals with excellent knowledge in their area of expertise.
• Colleagues who are aligned to our values and mission; if you are the type of person who fits with our culture, you will love working here.
• Colleagues who passionately believe that all children can achieve, no matter what their starting point, background or needs.
• Someone who does not make excuses for what children can achieve.

We look forward to hearing from you.

Commitment to Diversity and Inclusion at Astrea Academy Trust

Astrea Academy Trust is committed to safeguarding and promoting the welfare of children and young people and expects all staff and volunteers to share in this commitment.

Astrea Academy Trust embraces diversity and promotes equality of opportunity. As an equal opportunity employer, we consider all requests for flexible working as we know that diversity fosters creativity and innovation.

We are committed to developing and retaining a workforce that is representative of the diverse communities that we serve.  We are committed to equality of opportunity, to being fair and inclusive and building our culture of belonging.  We therefore particularly encourage applications from candidates who are likely to be underrepresented in Astrea’s workforce.  These include people from Black, Asian and minority ethnic backgrounds, disabled people, LGBTQI+ people.

All successful appointments will be subject to suitability checks in accordance with KCSIE, including identity, Right to Work, prohibition, qualifications, online searches, two references and enhanced DBS check including the Children’s Barred List.

The post is exempt from the Rehabilitation of Offenders Act (ROA) 1974. Guidance on the Rehabilitation of Offenders Act 1974 and the Exceptions Order 1975, which provides information about which convictions must be declared during job applications and related exceptions, can be found here: https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/new-guidance-on-the-rehabilitation-of-offenders-act-1974