Are you a passionate English educator with a track record of inspiring both students and colleagues? Do you have the vision and drive to lead innovative teaching strategies within a dynamic English department? If so, we invite you to apply for the role of Lead Practitioner of English at The Westleigh School.
As the Lead Practitioner of English, you will:
- Model and lead outstanding teaching and learning within the English department.
- Drive continuous improvement in teaching practice through coaching, mentoring, and professional development.
- Develop innovative and engaging curriculum resources that inspire students of all abilities.
- Support and challenge colleagues to reach their full potential, enhancing the overall quality of education.
- Use data-driven approaches to raise student attainment and close achievement gaps.
- Contribute to whole-school improvement through strategic leadership.
At The Westleigh School, we place the utmost importance on the wellbeing and professional development of our staff. We believe that happy, supported educators are the key to unlocking the potential in our students. That’s why we prioritise a healthy work-life balance, continuous professional growth, and a collaborative, nurturing environment. We are proud to be a school that has enabled more staff than ever before to complete National Professional Qualifications (NPQs), and we remain fully committed to supporting ongoing development at every stage of a teacher’s career. Whether you're an early career teacher or an aspiring leader, we invest in your journey because we know that developing great teachers leads to great outcomes.
We are a school driven by excellence and innovation. As a fully digital school, every staff member and student is equipped with an iPad, allowing for creative, high-impact teaching strategies and interactive learning experiences. Our strong pastoral system, built around a thriving college model, fosters healthy competition, a deep sense of belonging, and a shared determination to be the best in all areas of school life. At The Westleigh School, we don’t just aspire to excellence—we create the conditions for it, empowering our staff and students to achieve their full potential together.
Our ethos is ‘Aspiring and Achieving Together’. Whilst we are committed to ensuring that every student makes excellent progress, this concept stretches well beyond academic performance. We firmly believe that every aspect of school should equip learners to be successful in all areas of their lives, both now and for their future. Indeed, every single decision or action taken improves the life chances of all our learners. This is underpinned by ensuring The Westleigh school is a safe, nurturing and happy environment: put simply, The Westleigh School is a great place to learn and a great place to work.
Uniting with The Shaw Education Trust brings with it new opportunities and a wealth of resources to supplement our mission to improve outcomes for all our students. Colleagues will have access to a large range of well-established training opportunities, such as a fully funded L5 Instructional Coaching qualification or Accelerated Leadership training, for those aspiring to Middle Leadership. Outstanding teachers will also achieve Trust Professional Advocate designation, which provides exciting opportunities to support colleagues within both The Westleigh School and across other SET schools to share best practice. With this brings the opportunity to engage in the cross-trust peer review and Trust CPD programme.
Shaw Education Trust are a thriving mix of diverse and growing schools including Primary, Secondary and Special Schools all working together to improve the lives of young people in our communities. We are sponsored by Shaw Trust a charity organisation that focuses on transforming lives. We’re a growing group of dynamically awesome academies providing education to children of all ages and abilities. Staff across our team of schools are dedicated to ensuring that every child has the opportunity to be successful, whatever their starting point in life.
In our secondary schools, we pride ourselves on our innovative approach to curriculum design, to ensure all our schools have breadth and ambition for all students, regardless of their starting points and barriers. Standard curriculum models don’t always engage all students, so we constantly seek to innovate and provide better opportunities to develop both knowledge and skills for life. We want our students to believe their curriculum is bold, exciting, purposeful, and ultimately leads to something meaningful for them. Some examples of our innovation include moving towards an extended school day, to provide a world class enrichment programme and more opportunities for essential skills like reading and cultural capital. We are also introducing vocational and technical pathways, which run through the normal school curriculum but attract support from leading employers and universities to develops work-readiness in our students, so that they can progress onto T Levels and apprenticeships.
We are currently at an exciting point in their evolution, with collaboration at the heart of our collective endeavour. We don’t operate in silos: we value the power of the pack and strive to collaborate as a collective, ensuring no school or colleague is left behind. We are currently co-constructing an aligned curriculum across all EBacc curriculum subjects, to create a world class curriculum, rich in powerful knowledge and skills. This is driving up standards through the sharing of the very best practice, whilst allowing each school sufficient flexibility for autonomy to do what is right for their local context. A by-product of this approach has been the reduction in planning workload for colleagues, meaning they can spend more time on the things that matter and fostering strong relationships with pupils and delivery of the curriculum.
Shaw Education Trust offer the following employee benefits with your Teaching or Support Staff employment:
- An excellent Local Government Pension Scheme (Support Staff)/Teachers Pension (Teaching Staff)
- Support Staff only based on working full time, all year - Generous holiday entitlement from your first day of employment (37 days holiday rising to 39 days after 5 years’ service including Bank Holidays)
- Electric Car Scheme: Environmentally friendly vehicles with our electric car scheme.
- Access to Medicash Health & Wellbeing Plan: Enjoy health services designed to support your well-being.
- Free DiscountForTeachers Scheme for all staff (Support and Teaching), Exclusive discounts to save money with a wide selection of discounts and exclusive offers from hundreds of the biggest brands.
- Free Eye Tests
- Cycle to work scheme
- Access to our Institute of Education and fantastic opportunities to help you grow, contribute and flourish in your role and in the Trust.
We know our people are the key to our success and so we’re committed to ensuring the employment experience at Shaw Education Trust is a rewarding one.
Colleagues within the Trust benefit from: Access to a full range of courses both in-house and professionally accredited. These courses include all of the National Professional Qualifications – NPQH, NPQSL, NPQEYL, NPQLL, NPQLT, NPQLTD, NPQLBC are all delivered by the Shaw Education Trust as a delivery partner for Ambition Institute. In addition, we provide access to the NPQEL for Executive Leaders.
- Experienced leadership and subject-specific support.
- Guidance from former HMIs and serving Ofsted Inspectors within the Trust.
- Access to the Trust’s Institute of Education and SCITT.
- Opportunities to work with different schools within the Trust as a Professional Advocate.
- Participating in peer reviews.
- Access to a suite of online courses.
- Placement projects within our family of schools.
The Westleigh School is committed to safeguarding and promoting the welfare of children and young people and expects all staff and volunteers to share this commitment.
This position is subject to appropriate vetting procedures including an online checks and criminal record check from the Disclosure and Barring Service (formerly CRB) which will require you to disclose details of all unspent and unfiltered spent reprimands, formal warnings, cautions and convictions.
All shortlisted candidates will undergo an online search as part of Trust safer recruitment.
We reserve the right to appoint before the closing date as we review applications on an on-going basis and interviews may be arranged as suitable candidates are identified, therefore, we encourage early applications.
We are an Equal Opportunities employer and will ensure that all our recruitment and selection practices reflect this commitment.
In accordance with our safer recruitment policy CV’s alone will not be accepted.
We reserve the right to appoint before the closing date, therefore, we encourage early applications.
Successful candidates will be subject to a fully Enhanced DBS check along with other relevant employment checks.