Teacher of Dance - Maternity Cover

We are seeking to appoint an enthusiastic, highly motivated and inspirational Teacher of Dance to join a committed and successful department. The right candidate will help provide a supportive, stimulating environment and share our high expectations of achievement for all our children. This post is suitable for either an experienced teacher or an ECT seeking to start their career in a caring and supportive team with expertise in training and development.

Part-time and flexible working requests may be accommodated.

Testbourne Community School, an 11-16 comprehensive school with an extremely able cohort, is an Outstanding School (Ofsted 2010) which provides a forward thinking, outward looking and vibrant learning environment. We pride ourselves on the strength of staff and student relationships and we have a strong community at the heart of our ethos. Our shared philosophy is embodied by our strapline ‘Achievement, Excellence, Integrity.’ 

We highly value our staff and expect teaching staff to exercise their professional judgement in how they teach. We are dedicated to professional learning and you will be supported to develop into a highly competent teacher with a deep understanding of effective teaching strategies. 

“I really enjoy working at Testbourne. Not only are the students enthusiastic in their learning and respectful of teachers, Senior Leadership are supportive, caring and value their staff. I have been given numerous opportunities to develop and progress in my career, and since starting a young family have been supported in working part-time whilst maintaining responsibilities.”

To get a sense of what it’s like to be part of our team, please see the ‘Working for Us’ section on our website. 

Testbourne is a high performing school, with students achieving our highest results on record in the summer 2022. 85% achieved a ‘standard’ pass of grade 4 and above in English and Maths combined. Almost a quarter of students achieved the top grades, 9-7, in both English and Maths. A staggering total of 135 grade 9s were achieved by our year 11s across their subjects.

In 2022, 20% of GCSE Dance students achieved a grade 7 or above, whilst 72% of students achieved a standard pass or better. Our GCSE Dance lessons are delivered in a specialist Dance studio which has accompanying changing facilities, and the department has digital recording equipment to provide rapid in-lesson feedback on dance performances.

The successful candidate will:

• be an excellent or potentially excellent teacher of Dance;
• be passionate about Dance and engaging students in the subject;
• have a passion for learning and teaching and be committed to continuous learning and professional development.
• be forward thinking and keen to develop as a practitioner;
• have fantastic subject knowledge and be passionate about helping all students to appreciate Dance and achieve excellent standards in the subject;
• able to teach a secondary subject, although not essential.

In return we:

• offer professional development and expertise to enable staff to achieve excellence;
• provide a highly supportive environment with opportunities to develop as an education practitioner;
• provide a highly professional and collaborative working environment focused on developing a love of learning;
• offer first rate personal career development to assist you in the fulfilment of your ambitions;
• facilitate a culture of research, development and personal reflection to ensure that everyone can reach the high standards expected;
• provide excellent support for ECTs with well trained and experienced professional tutors and mentors. We offer paid induction and orientation activities in the summer term for ECTs joining us in September.