Teacher of Classics

We are the Stephen Perse Foundation. Extraordinary things happen here every day.

I am immensely excited to have been appointed as the Principal of the Stephen Perse Foundation and am really looking forward to leading the Foundation in the years ahead. I am excited because all of the evidence I have seen tells me that the Foundation is superbly well placed, both to meet the challenges, and to seize the opportunities, presented by its future as a leader in modern independent education.

Any school, indeed any group of schools, is only as strong as its people. The Stephen Perse Foundation boasts exceptional people across all of its schools and nurseries, and invests in their recruitment, development and empowerment to ensure its pupils benefit from excellent role modelling, outstanding support and exceptional teaching. As incoming Principal, I realise the central importance of continuing this investment.

At the Stephen Perse Foundation, all are united in embracing the modern world and in seeking to help our pupils to find and take their place in it, as confident, socially responsible adults. We seek to attract people who are inspired by this challenge, people who share the Foundation’s values, people who are passionate about our collective vision of developing the change makers of the future.

Richard Girvan
Principal 

Your Role
At the Stephen Perse Foundation everyone is a learner. While our pupils enjoy the benefits of a creative and innovative learning environment, our teachers strive to inspire and engage through using a wide range of pedagogical approaches.

We want every teacher to offer the very best in teaching and learning to our students and this will inevitably, and perhaps even increasingly, involve the digital world. We are iPad 1-to-1 from 11 to 18 and our Junior Schools and Pre-Preps use class sets. We are a leader in the use of digital technology within the classroom and are one of only 11 schools in the UK to be Apple Distinguished Schools. This helps us to support our teachers and learners to have an appropriate use of these technologies.

We don’t need you to be fluent or confident user of technology before you start working with us but we will want you to have an agile and ambitious mind-set that is open to adopting new techniques. Training and support is offered on a regular basis as part of formal and informal CPD and is focused on student learning.

The Classics Department
The Classics Department is currently made up of 6 teachers (3 full time; 3 part time). We teach Latin to all pupils in Years 7-9, and a good proportion of the year group choose to continue the subject through to GCSE. An ab initio two year Greek GCSE course is offered in Year 10. In the Sixth Form we offer Latin and Greek at IB, and Latin, Greek and Classical Civilisation for A Level. We are committed to creating opportunities for learning beyond the curriculum, and recent initiatives have included day trips to local sites of interest, residential trips abroad, local lecture and seminar days, reading competitions and essay competitions. Our department has a strong reputation nationally: the new KS3 Latin course de Romanis was written, trialled and developed by members of the department. Many members of the department are involved in Classics beyond the SPF classroom, including outreach initiatives in the local maintained sector, PGCE mentoring, examining (for Latin, Greek and Class Civ) and national CPD courses.

The department is a happy place: we all enjoy our jobs, and we value the opportunity to work with eachother in order to help each other progress in our understanding both of the subjects we teach and the way in which we teach them. There is a supportive atmosphere within the department, and decisions about best practice are made collaboratively. Our ethos is that we need to focus on the academic and personal growth of our pupils, and we enjoy thinking creatively about how best we can use our subjects to help foster this.

The successful applicant for this post needs to be enthusiastic about their subject, and keen to learn. CPD is a core focus within the Foundation: within the Classics Department we enjoy learning from each other, and we would hope that the successful candidate would be enthusiastic about joining in with this process. The Curriculum Leader for Classics – Katharine Radice – is happy to answer further questions by email (ker@stephenperse.com).