Learning Mentor (focus on attendance)

At Northolt High School, our vision, mission and values underpin everything that we do. Our aim is to enable our students to develop strength of character, to be articulate and confident and to secure the best academic outcomes possible. Our school vision is "committed to excellence". Our mission statement describes how we work to achieve this core aim - through "seizing opportunity, instilling ambition, realising potential". Join us and you will be welcomed by a hard-working, dedicated staff and subject team who are united in their focus on student achievement and continuous school improvement.

We work in partnership with an organisation called Sycol which supports us in ensuring that we have clear systems in place, which are developed and agreed by staff collectively. Termly innovation projects involve every member of staff, helping us to quickly and effectively share ideas whilst forging strong partnerships across the staff team. These projects ensure that systemic school improvement is embedded in everything we do whilst at the same time providing all staff members with a high-quality leadership development programme.

Northolt High School is a Foundation School in the London Borough of Ealing. Ealing schools have traditionally worked very collaboratively and it is no coincidence that Ealing’s performance in national league tables is strong. Schools in Ealing have come together to form the Ealing Learning Partnership (ELP) in conjunction with the Council. This partnership provides us with a range of networks so that Northolt High School staff are able to share and develop ideas and practice with Ealing colleagues across a range of schools.

We are a relatively small school at the moment with 866 students on roll, but this is about to significantly increase as we have a new building project on the horizon which we expect to make our school even more popular. We move into our state of the art new school building in February 2026 and are expecting student admissions to rise in the coming years.

We maintain a broad and balanced curriculum offer for all students. Our intention is to develop the school so that it has STEAM specialism (the ‘A’ is for Art) whilst at the same time retaining a breadth of curriculum offer for our students. Our curriculum offer includes a broad range of extra-curricular activities as all teachers offer one after school activity a week.

We have added a Learning Mentor to our attendance staff team as a direct response to the challenges students have faced during the pandemic. We have noticed an increase school absenteeism in line with national trends and this post is designed to specifically support students with low attendance records to support them to come to school. The successful post holder will work closely with our Deputy Headteacher leading on Attendance and our Attendance Officer and will provide day to day support for students and families, including conducting home visits where appropriate.

We will be the right school for you if you are committed to:

• Ensuring that you provide high-quality support for all of our students whose attendance is causing concern.
• Play a full part in termly innovation projects to contribute to the development of school-wide continuous improvement.
• Contributing to the wider life of the school and our engagement with the local community whenever opportunities arise.

We can offer you:

• Great support and training as you develop your career.
• The opportunity to innovate and bring in new ideas to contribute towards improving our school.
• A caring and supportive professional environment, with attention paid to staff wellbeing and helping staff to maintain a good work/life balance.
• A thoughtful and well-structured school calendar with careful attention paid to balancing workload.
• A commitment to providing high-quality opportunities for you to continue your professional learning.

Our recruitment process

One of the Ealing Learning Partnership projects we have been engaged with in the last two years is a ‘No Learner Left Behind’ project to improve the outcomes of our Black Caribbean students. Informed by our work on this project, we conduct an annual analysis of the ethnicity profile of our student body. Our long term aim is to ensure that the profile of our staff group matches that of our students. At the moment, we are underrepresented in the following ethnicity groups: Arab, Asian, Black Caribbean, Black African and Traveller of Irish Heritage. We would therefore welcome applications from candidates who would classify themselves as belonging to these groups.

We are introducing a ‘blind’ selection process this year which we also hope will support us in reducing the risk of any unintended bias during our recruitment process. You will see that our application form is in two parts. Part one, which contains details about candidates’ gender, ethnicity and age, is not shared with the staff who select candidates to bring them forward to the interview stage.

A Job Description & Person Specification plus an application form can be found on our website: www.northolthigh.org.uk

If you would like to find out more about the school prior to your application, please contact Carol Gleeson, the Headteacher’s PA on the email address below.

Please email your application to the Headteacher’s PA at:cgleeson@northolthigh.org.uk

Closing date: 9am, Wednesday 30 October 2024.

Interviews to be held on Wednesday 6 November 2024.

The school is committed to safeguarding children and safer recruitment processes are always robustly followed. Our child protection and safeguarding policy can be found on our website in this folder. This role will involve contact with children and engagement in regulated activity relevant to children.

Successful candidates’ appointment will be subject to safer recruitment checks and satisfactory completion of an enhanced DBS check. This post is exempt from the Rehabilitation of Offenders Act (ROA) 1974. Further information can be found at: https://www.gov.uk/government/organisations/disclosure-and-barring-service/about The school reserves the right to research shortlisted candidates on social media platforms and the internet, and the recruitment panel may take this information into consideration during the recruitment process'