Head of English

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For an aspiring or current Head of English whose creativity and passion will drive our strong team to even higher levels of performance.

Unsworth Academy is a thriving, oversubscribed, co-educational and non- selective Bury high school. The school is on an incredibly exciting journey of school improvement and when last inspected in November 2019 was judged to be Good in all areas.

We are now three years into our "Good to Outstanding" journey. There have been many highlights, including superb outcomes at GCSE, but a particular highlight of the journey has been digitalisation. All our students and staff have a school iPad that they utilise in and out of lessons.

The successful candidate will lead our English Department of 8 excellent colleagues. Our structure is a Head of Department, a 2nd in Department and a Lead Practitioner. Our English curriculum is well sequenced and is complimented regularly by enhancement activities such as theatre visits and visiting workshops. You must be driven to continuously improve and be a leader who delivers and develops people.

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.

Interview Date: Tuesday 15th October 2024