Principal

Principal of Highfields Spencer Academy

L14 - L20 (£61,043 to £70,734)

This is an exciting and unique opportunity to be the Principal of a thriving and expanding primary school located between Findern and Mickleover, and 4 miles south west of Derby. This position offers the chance to work with:

• A diverse and inclusive school at the centre of a newly built community
• A body of children who are happy and who enjoy coming to school 
• A visionary, successful and outward facing MAT

We opened in September 2020, in a brand new building, initially housing nursery and reception age children only. We now have classes from nursery to year 3 and will be accommodating all year groups by summer 2026. We pride ourselves on our ‘Rainbow’ values of ‘respect, achieve, inspire, nurture, belong, open and well-being’.

Our recent Ofsted report celebrated our strengths in a number of areas which were graded as good. Our principal is relocating for September 2023 so we are looking for an experienced and inspiring individual who can oversee the next phase of our journey towards outstanding when we are next inspected.

You will be supported by a strong and inclusive MAT which comprises 17 other primary and 8 secondary schools, a Teaching Hub, a SCITT, a Research School and a Maths Hub. Our successful network educates children and young people across Nottinghamshire, Derbyshire, Nottingham City, Derby City and Leicestershire.

The Spencer Academies Trust exists to make sure that every child, regardless of background, has access to an outstanding education and real-life choices. Our successful track record of providing high quality teaching and learning ensures improved outcomes for our learners. Our core values of Aspiration, Responsibility and Partnership reflect our vision and aim for all Trust schools.

The successful candidate will have the opportunity to work collaboratively with other Primary Principals in the Derbyshire cluster and more broadly across the MAT. You should have the qualifications, skills and experience to provide inspirational and effective leadership of the Academy, ensuring pupils have opportunities for outstanding personal development and to make exceptional learning gains in relation to their potential.

We are looking for a leader who:

• Has a strong understanding of what makes an outstanding curriculum offer, and how to secure this
• Is well organised and able to juggle the competing demands of leading a growing school roll and staff team,
• Is a highly motivated individual with a ‘can-do’ attitude
• Is naturally collaborative in style but who can take difficult decisions when needed and provide direction 

The Spencer Academies Trust is a multi-academy trust with schools across the East Midlands, and with a strategic focus on Nottinghamshire and Derbyshire.

A high performing regional MAT with a national reputation for excellence, Spencer Academies Trust schools include primary, secondary and sixth form provision. Our academies work across highly diverse city and rural communities, including a strong presence in Derby and Nottingham. Standards and expectations in trust schools are high – and the trust focus on rapid improvement on the journey to outstanding education delivery.

Spencer Academies Trust is an educational charity, Multi-Academy Trust and Sponsor of Academies. We have approaching 18000 children and young people in our academies and employ more than 2200 teachers, leaders and educational support professionals across the East Midlands. We aspire to be a leading regional high performing Trust, with a national reputation for excellence.

We currently have 17 primary academies, 8 secondary academies and one primary aged special school in our family of schools. All of our schools benefit from the collaboration and added value that being a member of our Trust offers, and share our values and beliefs. Spencer Trust academies share an ambition to deliver results that compete with the very highest performing schools in the country, and deliver a curriculum for students that is underpinned by breadth, opportunity and quality: one that seeks to give young people the opportunity to develop into well rounded global citizens that believe they can influence positive change in the world.

Mission

Our Mission is to deliver the best possible outcomes for children and young people.

Vision

Spencer Academies Trust is an exceptional Trust, providing an outstanding education for local children.

We Believe: 

• All children have a right to a quality education regardless of background or ability, and have an entitlement to the opportunity of a secure progression route in their learning and development.          
• Schools are stronger when they work in collaboration with each other, operate within a ‘family’ and are open to a true sense of partnership.          
• We grow the effectiveness and sustainability of our schools by developing the people within them, and that through shared and equitable responsibility for quality and outcomes; we achieve more.

Applicants will be expected to share our Trust’s high aspirations and expectations for students and employees. If you are excited by the prospect of working with us, want to know more about the type of professional we are looking for and what we can offer, please visit www.satrust.com

To apply to work with Spencer Academies Trust, please complete your candidate profile via our new Every Portal. If you are accessing our Every portal for the first time, you will need to register to add and save your candidate profile information, before you can then tag your profile to this vacancy. We have added a video to help guide you, please visit https://vimeo.com/737845492/c1b8e43656

We offer a comprehensive range of employee benefits, please visit:  http://satrust.com/wp-content/uploads/2022/08/SAT-Employee-Benefits-September-2022.pdf   

Closing date: 9am on Thursday 20th April 2023

Interview dates: 24th and 25th April 2023

Spencer Academies Trust is committed to safeguarding and promoting the welfare of all our students and all posts are subject to enhanced DBS with children’s barred list checks and completion of Level 2 safeguarding training.

Spencer Academies Trust is a Disability Confident Committed Employer.