Principal

High Close is a non-maintained residential and day special school catering for children and young people between the ages of 7 and 18 years. It forms part of the educational provision offered by Barnardo's and our pupils come from a wide geographical area covering around 20 local authorities. The school has two SEN designations from the DfE, one for Social, Emotional and Mental Health needs and the other, Speech, Language and Communication Needs.

All our young people have an Education, Health and Care Plan (EHCP) for complex needs which may be to do with learning, behaviour, meeting demands or a range of other problems such as ADHD, Attachment, Autism, Specific Learning Difficulties, Mental Health difficulties, Sensory disorders, Speech and Language difficulties or a combination of some of these.

High Close is a tightly knit and positive community catering for up to 94 children and young people. We create a caring and supportive environment to bring out the best in every pupil and prepare them for a successful future.

High Close School is located in Wokingham, Berkshire, between Reading and Bracknell. Our school has excellent classroom and residential provision, with extensive, attractive grounds.

Barnardo's Schools are committed to safeguarding and promoting the welfare of children and expects all staff and volunteers to share in this commitment.

Our safer recruitment processes mean that the safety and welfare of the child is paramount at every stage of the process and therefore we adopt rigorous scrutiny in our pre-employment checking. Applicants must be willing to undergo relevant pre-employment checks, including online checks, references being taken up prior to interview and for the successful candidate, an Enhanced Disclosure and Barring Service (DBS) check, in line with the Keeping Children Safe in Education Statutory Guidance.

As part of your application, you will need to provide full details of your employment since leaving secondary education, starting with your current or most recent employment first and then by working backwards, including reasons for leaving. Please also include any periods of voluntary work and/or training, providing reasons for any periods not in employment, education or training. 

Our current pay framework is being reviewed. 

About Barnardo's

At Barnardo's we believe in children – no matter who they are, what they have done or what they have been through. Please read about our basis and values following the link below. You will be asked questions relating to them as part of the recruitment process for this role.

Barnardo's is committed to having a diverse and inclusive workforce for staff and volunteers. We actively encourage applications from disabled, Black, Asian and Minority Ethnic and male candidates as they are under-represented within Barnardo's.

Please note due to the high volume of applications for some posts, this advert might close before the displayed closing date. We recommend that you apply for this role as soon as possible.

Pay & Reward Framework

We know that our colleagues go above and beyond in delivering our vital work, driven by their passion and commitment to Barnardo's values. We also know that we can only realise our ambitions and achieve better outcomes for more children, thanks to the talent, hard work and creativity of our people.

For all these reasons, we are committed to a new approach to pay and reward, to ensure it is fair, attractive and progressive, which was rolled out 1st April 2023. This is a positive change for the charity, and a key pillar of our People & Culture Strategy. It will assist us in supporting colleagues to grow and develop in their career at Barnardo's as it will offer clear routes of progression for colleagues to progress through the pay band of their role.

Whilst the full pay band and salary range is advertised, our approach to starting salaries is to appoint between the minimum to mid-point of the pay band – this ensures that pay progression steps are available to reward our colleagues annually based on their contribution to excellence and alignment to our values and behaviours. More details on Barnardo's pay framework can be found upon application.

Benefits

Workplace Offer: What it means for you

The world of work has changed. We are understanding of what works best for our colleagues both current and future as we look to embrace this new way of working. Our hybrid working initiative is based on trust, flexibility and empowerment. We understand our workplace offer means different things to different people, and we encourage those conversations. This may mean working at one of our stores, services, working at home, at one of our Collaboration Hubs or any combination of these.

• Barnardo's believe in creating equality of opportunity in the workplace and supporting people to manage their work-life balance; we are therefore open to offering flexible working arrangements.
• A host of family friendly leave options including company Maternity Paternity and Adoption pay; together with all family additional leave options
• Service related sick pay from day 1
• Death in service cover of 4x annual earnings for all staff contributing to our Group Personal Pension
• Cycle2work scheme
• Interest free season ticket loans
• Discounts and cashback from at high street shops including major supermarkets, cinemas, gyms, leisure/theme parks, holidays and much more via our Benefit Portal
• 20% discount at Barnardo's stores
• Opportunity to purchase a health cash plan to claim towards dental, glasses, therapy etc
• Free access to round the clock employee assistance program for advice and support
• Access to Barnardo's Learning and Development offer

*T&C's apply based on contract

About Barnardo's

At Barnardo's we believe in children – no matter who they are, what they have done or what they have been through. Please read about our basis and values following the link below. You will be asked questions relating to them as part of the recruitment process for this role.

Our commitment to Equality, Diversity and Inclusion (EDI) is reflected in our values and our practice, and we have invested in this area of our work to ensure that we can deliver on our commitments to be an inclusive employer. EDI is a key enabler of our purpose as a charity and we want to ensure that the diversity of our teams is reflective of the communities we serve and that we continue to learn and develop our work with a focus on inclusion. We particularly encourage applications from candidates from Black, Asian and Minoritised Ethnic Communities, candidates who are LGBT+ and Disabled candidates.