Head of School
Nicholas Chamberlaine School
Warwickshire
- Expired
- Salary:
- According to track record
- Job type:
- Full Time, Permanent
- Start date:
- January 2021
- Apply by:
- 5 October 2020
Job overview
The Griffin Schools Trust is a family of schools in the Midlands, London and the South East united in building great schools on the three pillars of Proud Traditions, Wide Horizons and High Achievement. Our single most important mission is to provide the conditions for children to discover who they are and then to go on confidently to take their places in society and to make a personal difference through the use of their talents. We will never teach children to know their places.
Having been judged Good by Ofsted for the first time in its history in 2015, the last inspection in late 2019 judged two limiting areas to have regressed to RI. The Trust responded rapidly, placing two seasoned leaders to recover the two areas to Good (to our own validation) and then advance the school’s progress quickly to Griffin Great via Ofsted Outstanding. This requires re-building strong capacity at senior and middle leadership by establishing a robust and sustainable talent pipeline.
Since joining GST in 2013, the school’s culture has progressed impressively so that aspirations are higher, exemplified in a growing VIth Form whose leavers gain places at good universities and are keen to travel further afield to pursue higher education. Extra-curricular opportunities are broad and the school plays a full part in Trust events and hosts our annual Sports Festival each September. The school has recently had its main teaching block re-built under PSPB2 so that students and staff enjoy better facilities.
We now seek to appoint a Head of School.
The successful candidate will be ready to lead on the teaching and learning agenda but will have much more to learn about the many other facets of school leadership that make a good Head, such as: understanding financial planning and management; navigating the complexities of the compliance and regulation context in which contemporary MATs and their constituent schools sit; working with local and corporate governance as part of the leadership and management of the school; exercising the art of building community and culture; developing the environment to reinforce the vision; gaining experience in the fair and transparent management of a whole staff and students and growing a personal leadership style.
The new Head of School will have two great mentors and role models in Mark Bland and Justin Creasey who will continue to lead NCS, delegating substantial responsibility to the Head of School to use proven expertise immediately. They will also coach and give the Head of School space to develop the wider knowledge, skills and judgement we expect from a GST Head.
We welcome applications from senior leaders with a proven track record in personally raising standards and driving improvement projects from initiation to completion. Salary on the Leadership scale will be agreed according to track record.
Our Heads are a close-knit team who meet regularly, so the ability to work with peers and to give and take challenge is essential.
How to apply
We have included a brief history of the school, the recent Ofsted report, a copy of Griffin Great Schools and a summary of inspection history across the Trust.
Please research the Trust as well as the school and tell us in no more than two sides of A4
1. What you understand the key tasks and challenges for NCS to be and how you would address them as Head of School.
2. Why your own experience and track record equip you be the next Head of NCS
3. Which areas of Headship you are aware you need to learn.
Include a full CV with the names and contact details of two referees and send your application, addressed to Anne Powell CEO of the Trust, to michelle.hall@griffinschoolstrust.org by midday 05 October 2020.
Interviews will be held on Wednesday 07 and Thursday 08 October by video conference or at the Trust offices, depending on Covid circumstances.
We will do our best to facilitate a visit to the school by request.
If you would like a confidential discussion with the CEO, Michelle Hall will arrange it.
Attached documents
About Nicholas Chamberlaine School
- Nicholas Chamberlaine School
- Bulkington Road, Bedworth
- Warwickshire
- CV12 9EA
- United Kingdom
Nicholas Chamberlaine School (NCS), named after a local benefactor prominent in the history of the area, opened in 1953 to serve the population of Bedworth. It has always been a comprehensive school in terms of intake, despite being a technology college for some time before joining the Griffin Schools Trust (GST) and reverting to its founding name. Its former students have included well-known sportsmen and women and at least one pop musician.
The school is very important to the town and is the obvious first choice of secondary school. It is also the second largest employer in Bedworth, after Tesco which has a grade A store there. The community uses the facilities after school hours and at weekends and the local rugby club has its clubhouse on site.
After some periods of instability and poor outcomes, NCS was proud to earn its first ever Good judgment from Ofsted in 2015, two years after joining GST. Sadly, the new framework judged the quality of education to require improvement in 2019 (though other aspects remain Good) which means the staff team, supported by the Trust, have work to do to re-gain Good and rapidly progress to Griffin Great via Ofsted Outstanding.
We love sport at NCS and host the annual Griffin Sports Festival which brings teams from every school into fierce competition every September. The Trust’s Director of Sport is based at our school. We are growing our traditions in the arts and have a successful and popular art department as well as strong interest in music and drama. We take part in the annual Shakespeare Schools Festival, a National Theatre project, and stage regular school productions. Our students sing in the Griffin Schools Choir and we are beginning to prepare for the Trust 10 year anniversary which will bring all schools together in one location to celebrate our family history.
We are proud of our school, its local history and its connections with eleven other GST schools in Bedworth, Nuneaton, Birmingham Dudley, Worcester, London and Medway.
We look forward to hearing from you.
Alison Ramsay
Executive Head
About the Griffin Schools Trust
The Griffin Schools Trust (GST) is a family of ten primary and two secondary schools in the Midlands, London and South East. We have a strong track record in making schools much better for children and their families and for the staff who work with us. Our single most important mission is to provide the conditions in which children discover who they are and then go on confidently to take their places in society, making a contribution to the world through the use of their talents. We will never prepare children to know their places.
When schools decide to join us they bring their histories to us and together we turn them into traditions reflecting the Trust’s mission and values whilst preserving and extending the each school’s individuality. We offer a rich curriculum and an unusual range of enrichment and extension clubs and activities. We also have shared traditions so that children form every school feel part of the same family. Every summer term we hold the Griffin Arts Festival. In the spring we have Founders Day and the Science Symposium and in the autumn students compete in the Griffin Science Symposium. All these festivals are linked in an annual theme schools’ four houses compete for a Trust cup which is awarded to the house colour which has accumulated most points from all Trust events. All staff, including the CEO, belong to a house.
Great GST schools have nothing institutional about them and great GST staff are thoughtfully recruited for their excellent knowledge and their broad interests. They are developed by Heads as well as the research and training opportunities offered across the Trust to add their individual magic to the mix. All our schools practice open and distributed leadership and place a high value on creativity as well as growing great talent pipelines to ensure that there are plenty of opportunities for promotion within and beyond the school.
Look at our website and click through to some of the schools as well as the one to which you are applying. We are frequently told that colleagues have found their professional home at GST. Is it yours? We look forward to hearing from you.
Anne Powell
Chief Executive Officer
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