Principal
Ark Acton Academy
Ealing
- Expired
- Salary:
- Significant and generous salary, including potential relocation bonus
- Job type:
- Full Time, Permanent
- Start date:
- September 2024 or earlier if possible
- Apply by:
- 30 October 2023
Job overview
Ark Acton Academy
Principal
Reports to: Regional Director
Start date: September 2024 or earlier if possible
Location: Gunnersbury Lane, Acton, London, W3 8EY
Salary: Significant and generous salary, including potential relocation bonus
Contract: Permanent, full-time
Closing date: 9am, Monday 30th October 2023
School visits: Afternoon of Thursday 12th October or to be arranged as suitable
Interviews: Week commencing Monday 30th October
Ark Acton Academy seeks to appoint a new Principal to lead the school through the next phase of its journey towards becoming an excellent school.
Our school:
Ark Acton Academy is a secondary school and sixth form serving children in the local community of Acton, Ealing. The school joined the Ark network of schools in 2018 after its predecessor school was placed in special measures, and we are proud to have recently been graded ‘Good’ in our first Ofsted inspection.
We are confident in the foundations on which Ark Acton has been built and are looking for an ambitious Principal who will drive the school to ensure it reaches its full potential. Since becoming an Ark school, we have improved our progress score from -0.4 to an anticipated +0.4 this year. We achieved our highest ever outcomes this summer, with 60% of year 11 pupils achieving grades 9-4 in English and maths, and record numbers moving on to post 16 destinations. The successful candidate will work closely with the Regional Director to work on the improving picture and have the support of the outgoing Principal who will be in role until the end of summer 2024 to aid a strong transition.
We welcome applications from high-potential, skilled Vice Principals with a clear vision for what it takes to establish and sustain an excellent school, as well as the commitment and determination to drive that vision forward. Equally, this is also an ideal opportunity for an existing Head who is actively looking for a new challenge in a school with great potential.
Ark Acton Academy is part of the Ark network, one of the country’s most successful multi-academy trusts. You will join a team of ambitious Principals who work collaboratively to share best practice, provide support for one another, and improve what we do as a school and a network.
What we offer:
We are offering a significant and generous six figure salary as well as the chance to work alongside some exceptional leaders who offer genuine support and capacity. In addition, at Ark you will have:
- Influence across network-wide issues through our principal meetings and regional collaboration
- Support from an experienced group of principals and Regional Director
- On-hand expertise from our dedicated network education and operations teams who are ready to support you and your school
- Bespoke teacher development programmes supported by the Great Teacher Rubric
- Excellent career development opportunities across both the region and wider Ark network
- Access to excellent senior leadership training
How to apply:
To apply, please submit an application via the Ark recruitment portal by 9am on Monday 30th October. If you have any questions, concerns or time constraints with applying please contact us directly.
We warmly welcome and encourage confidential conversations about the role and visits to our school for suitable candidates. If you are interested in finding out more about this opportunity, please contact our Regional Director, Amit Hathi on Amit.Hathi@arkonline.org or our Senior Recruitment Advisor, Shevonnae Sokoya on Shevonnae.Sokoya@arkonline.org
For more information about the role, the school and Ark, view the full job pack.
Ark is committed to safeguarding and promoting the welfare of children and young people in its academies. In order to meet this responsibility, its academies follow a rigorous selection process to discourage and screen out unsuitable applicants.
Ark requires all employees to undertake an enhanced DBS check. You are required, before appointment, to disclose any unspent conviction, cautions, reprimands or warnings under the Rehabilitation of Offenders Act 1974 (Exceptions) Order 1975. Non-disclosure may lead to termination of employment. However, disclosure of a criminal background will not necessarily debar you from employment - this will depend upon the nature of the offence(s) and when they occurred.
Ark Schools are committed to attracting, developing and retaining a diverse workforce, with a broad range of backgrounds, experiences and perspectives. To read more about Ark’s diversity and inclusion statement, please click this link.
Attached documents
About Ark Acton Academy
At Ark Acton Academy we believe that every child, regardless of background or prior achievement, can be successful if given great teaching and pastoral support. Our mission is to create a school of the highest standard that achieves this through recruiting and training excellent teachers and support staff, and by developing a pastoral system that ensures no child is left behind.
Our mastery curriculum is at the heart of school life and ensures that all students get the opportunity to study academic disciplines and to wrestle with ways of thinking that take them beyond everyday understandings. Alongside this we invest heavily in staff training and development to ensure that every student is taught by a subject expert who is passionate about their subject and its importance to understanding the world around us.
Whilst we want all our students to leave Ark Acton Academy with the currency they need to access the next stage of their education and to have an unrelenting focus on hard work and discipline, we know that getting great exam results is only half of a good education: we are determined to deliver as many opportunities as we can for every child to flourish outside the classroom. We want our students to be able to stand shoulder to shoulder with a child from a private school and compete for the same university place or job.
As part of Ark Schools, we have access to world class staff training and development, as well as expertise from across the network. Being part of a family of schools ensures that we can keep learning and evaluating our impact to ensure that every child who comes to Ark Acton leaves as a well-rounded and polite individual with the drive and resources to lead a happy and successful life.
Why work at Ark Acton Academy
At Ark Acton we have stripped away anything we feel gets in the way of being a great teacher so that we can focus on the main thing. This includes:
- Feedback policies that sit at department level and do not require slavish marking of books
- No graded lesson observations or spurious judgements
- No report writing
- No parent’s evenings
- Only 2 data points a year
- No ½ termly data metrics to track progress
- Protected Department meeting time built into the timetable and staff loadings
- Protected curriculum planning time built into the timetable and staff loadings
- A constant SLT presence to maintain our calm, scholarly atmosphere
- A binary behaviour system that enables disruption-free teaching.
Our curriculum
Our purpose as a school is to ensure our young people can go out into the world and live a life of choice and opportunity. We want them to leave Ark Acton having been inducted into systems of worthwhile knowledge that enable them to participate in and shape the national discourse.
In order to achieve this vision for our young people, we place the curriculum at the heart of school life. It drives all other decisions that we make and is the best means we have of demonstrating as a school what we believe in and what we stand for. In essence our curriculum is designed to ensure that all pupils at Acton acquire disciplinary knowledge that they cannot learn at home and that this specified curriculum knowledge is based on the most coherent and tested ways of conceptualising the world that we have.
Alongside our taught academic curriculum we run our co-curricular programme. This programme provides experiences and opportunities for all students to participate in individual and group activities that help them develop essential life skills. Debating and oracy sits at the heart of this model as we aim to enable all our students to develop confidence, articulacy and team-working skills.
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