Vice Principal

We have an exciting opportunity for a well-qualified, enthusiastic and ambitious leader to become our next Vice Principal. The successful candidate will be an outstanding teacher with a proven track record of high-quality leadership.

The successful candidate will be joining a very experienced team, the majority of whom have led the school on its journey with Ofsted, which saw the school secure its ‘Good’ judgement in September 2023. We are now the school of choice in the local area, with nearly all year groups full and holding a waiting list. Year on year, we now receive well over 400 applications for our 175 places in Year 7. We are honoured to be in this position, and it further galvanises our commitment to ensuring the highest-quality education for our children.

Hillside High School is a vibrant and exciting place to work and to learn. We all share the same commitment to our mission statement of ‘Excellence in the Heart of the Community’. This reflects our role serving the community of Bootle and North Liverpool, and our unrelenting ambition for excellence in all that we do. This excellence includes academic outcomes, our extremely high standards and expectations, and the exceptional pastoral care our students benefit from.

We are unrelenting in our ambition that students should leave us with the GCSEs they need to pursue their dreams and progress to suitably ambitious Post-16 opportunities. We work tirelessly to ensure our provision is of the highest quality, and all lessons include the ‘I Do, We Do, You Do’ phases and a ‘Blue Zone’. We believe this is fundamental to our students achieving their best academically.

We are proud to be a diverse and inclusive school, situated in the heart of the community. Our new Vice Principal must share our unrelenting drive to make a difference to the community we serve. Working at Hillside, you are truly making a difference to our children and their future life chances.

As a Vice Principal at Hillside High School, working within the Wade Deacon Trust, you will benefit from numerous opportunities within the Trust, for example, the training and opportunity to be a Challenge Partners Reviewer, Trust Reviews and Quality Assurance activities. You will also benefit from the joint working across the schools, which is well embedded across the Trust at all levels, including many leadership development opportunities.

Key areas of responsibility will be aligned with the strengths of the successful candidate. The new Vice Principal will be given full support in their career development.

About our School

Hillside High School has a clear vision that our pupils should achieve their best. With an unwavering child-centred ethos, we put our pupils at the heart of every decision we make. At Hillside High School, ‘The Hillside Way’ is exemplified in everything we do. The values of kindness, positivity and resilience are non-negotiable for staff and pupils. As a result, our teachers enjoy exemplary behaviour from pupils in lessons and are joining a community of hardworking, motivated and courteous young people.

We are extremely proud of our academic curriculum, which serves our pupils well and provides them with a solid grounding for their future studies and employment. We offer a knowledge-based curriculum, with ‘Reading is Power’ and diversity at its core.

We are proud of the numerous networks we are part of, including:

• Sefton School Improvement

• Best Practice Network

• Rainbow Teaching School

• Aspire Hub & Challenge Partners

• The Strand Partnership

• Partner school for Edge Hill University

These networks, in addition to the extensive CPD programme in school and across the trust, offer our teachers numerous opportunities to develop and engage in the most up-to-date research and thinking. Our forward-thinking approach to ‘putting staff first’ is exemplified in our appraisal process, which means all staff have one objective, which is linked to a disciplined inquiry. This is because we are a school that is passionate about teacher development. We want staff who are passionate about their own learning just as much as they are about their pupils’ learning. We can offer an extensive CPD programme, including a one-to-one coach with time allocated for instructional coaching and high-quality CPD in reading and subject expertise.

We can offer you fantastic, eager children and supportive parents. We have dynamic and friendly staff who are passionate about raising standards and aspiration for all children, regardless of their ability and circumstances. Above all else, we are a school that believes that every pupil, regardless of their context or starting point, can and should achieve their full potential. If you believe that you have the motivation, belief and leadership quality to contribute to our future success, we would welcome an application from you.

Hillside High School provides an exciting and extremely rewarding environment in which you can develop your skills and, above all, enjoy your career. We are an incredibly supportive school and are always open to new ideas and developments that will improve and enhance the quality of education for our pupils. As a valued member of our team, you will enjoy the rewards of working alongside equally enthusiastic, dynamic and talented colleagues who thrive in an organisation that cares about them and takes care of them. You will quickly immerse yourself in an environment that will celebrate your successes and put your wellbeing at the heart of your experience here. You will be part of a team that understands that trying new things is encouraged and that things not going to plan is all part of the process. You will be given the freedom to explore the best ways in which your knowledge and skills can be transferred to our young people, as well as unconditional support from a close-knit staff team. There is a real sense of everyone being part of ‘Team Hillside’ in our school.

Our CPD Programme provides regular opportunities for teachers and support staff to work collaboratively in order to keep our school at the forefront of education in the broadest sense.

Wade Deacon Trust

Hillside High School is a secondary school in a growing multi-academy trust, the Wade Deacon Trust. The Trust is focused upon improving life chances for students and communities, providing sustainable school improvement; and schools joining the Trust do so with the prime aim of improving each other so that they can all become outstanding schools.

The Trust comprises ten academies working as equal partners, who strive for excellence in all they do for the benefit of their pupils. The Trust aims to provide a supportive and collaborative context in which the schools can grow and develop. That support takes many forms but has a clear focus on high expectations, school improvement and continuous professional development, thus ensuring that all pupils can fulfil their potential.

The Trust aims to provide a supportive and collaborative context in which the schools can grow and develop. That support takes many forms but has a clear focus on high expectations, school improvement and continuous professional development, thus ensuring that all pupils can fulfil their potential.

For more details about this exciting opportunity and to apply, please visit the Trust website via the Apply button.

Closing date: 9 am on Tuesday, 6th October 2026.

Interview date: Wednesday, 14th October 2026.

The Wade Deacon Trust is committed to safeguarding and promoting the welfare of young people and expects all staff and volunteers to share this commitment. The post is subject to an enhanced DBS check and satisfactory medical clearance.