Leading Practitioner (Science)

We are delighted that you have taken an interest in a teaching vacancy at Holland Park: It is an extraordinary school. We wish for applicants to be fully briefed about its opportunities, advantages and even luxuries, as well as its demands and challenges. We know that a school’s ethos, priorities and values are distinctive and that these matter enormously to a sense of professional fulfilment and satisfaction.  Teachers at Holland Park believe in the value of detailed planning, of creative exciting, distinctive lesson ideas that seek not merely to be functional journeys through subject matter, but transformative learning experiences. They know that successful learning is not possible without rigorous and thorough methods of assessment. Teachers recognise that behaviour management is rooted in quality relationships Within the context of firm boundaries, students need to believe that teachers take warm and genuine interest in them. Emotional intelligence, warmth and sensitivity is central to good teaching.  

Holland Park is a school that recognises staff talent and seeks to reward it, where people’s values, attitudes as well as skills suggest that early promotion is mutually beneficial. Such promotion is always based on skills within the classroom, and leaders are expected to be amongst the best teachers in school. In relation to matters of workload, we understand the demands placed on teachers. This is why: we provide free tea and coffee served for teachers throughout the day; we run a shorter working year with staff development subsumed into twilight sessions; plan the school year, including detailed schemes of work, far in advance; we collect data only three times a year; we minimise split classes so that teachers see fewer students more intensively within a working week. The demands of marking and planning are significant enough and it is in the extraneous pressures – rather than the tasks integral to teaching – that we lighten colleagues’ loads. Our work in culturing a motivated and committed workforce has been recognised in the award of IIP platinum (2020).

Science is a popular subject at Holland Park, with significant uptake of Triple science at GCSE and all three sciences at A Level. Supported by the Holland Park Trust, students benefit from extensive extra-curricular opportunities, with a well attended dissection club, experiment club, an annual science fair  and trip to CERN in Geneva for A level physics students. The department is very well resourced to ensure that practicals are delivered effectively at all key stages. 

As a lead practitioner, you would work with other leaders in the team to develop schemes of work, demonstrate best practice in delivery of lessons and student outcomes, work to ensure consistency across the department and support colleagues in their professional development. We are seeking someone with:

- a positive approach to implementing improvements 

- a desire to take ownership over the success of the science department 

- an interest in looking to research to consider effective pedgogy

- a desire to support other teachers to ensure their success 

- strong organisational skills and a proven ability to meet deadlines

- experience  teaching science at KS3 and KS4 and ideally KS5

 We encourage you to read the school’s website closely, to read its 2014 Ofsted report and its history of examination performance. These are independent assessments of Holland Park and therefore helpful to you. Teachers are the most important resource in the school and we take our appointments very seriously indeed. At the same time, we also know that applicants are making a choice and that when teachers share the ethos of a school, learning is most powerfully and successfully supported. We hope that your investigation of the school reveals a place whose values you share and that you make your application with the same excitement with which it will be received.  

An application form that should be completed electronically is available from the school’s website: http://www.hollandparkschool.co.uk/vacancies/train-and-teach-with-us. Early application is encouraged as we will seek to interview and appoint on receipt. The closing date for applications is Monday 20th April 2020.