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Job Description
Post: Headteacher/ SENCO
Salary: £63,745- £69,407
Responsible to:
- The Governing Body
Purpose
The Headteacher will:
- Establish and sustain the school’s ethos and strategic direction together with the governing board and through consultation with the school community
- Promote excellence, quality and high expectations for all children
- Establish and oversee systems, processes and policies so the school can operate effectively
- Identify problems and barriers to school effectiveness, and develop strategies for school improvement that are realistic, timely and suited to the school’s context
- Ensure the school improvement strategies are effectively implemented
- Monitor progress towards achieving the schools’ aims and objectives
- Be responsible for the financial management of the school
- Lead on strategic planning for the school, underpinned by sound financial management, children’s safety, well-being and achievement
- Work with and through others to design and shape flexible, responsive services to meet the changing needs of children and families
- Foster team work through shared leadership and management
- Forge a shared vision and effective cross-disciplinary partnership with all the professionals involved with the school
Qualities
The headteacher will:
- Demonstrate the schools’ values, principles and vision in everyday practice
- Uphold public trust in school leadership and maintain high standards of ethics, behaviour and professional conduct
- Promote a safe and productive learning environment which is engaging and fulfilling
- Ensure equality of opportunity exists across the spectrum of diversity to promote the inclusion of all learners, enabling them to achieve their full potential without bias or prejudice
- Value the role parents, carers and families can play in helping children succeed and thrive, and ensure approaches are embedded that enable them to make a positive contribution to their child’s well-being and early learning
- Build positive and respectful relationships across the school, federation, community and beyond
- Demonstrate personal motivation and be successful in motivating all staff
- Serve in the best interests of the school’s pupils
Duties and responsibilities
The headteacher will:
- Create a culture where pupils experience a positive and enriching school life
- Uphold ambitious educational standards in order to prepare pupils from all backgrounds for their next phase of education and life
- Ensure a culture of staff professionalism
- Implement good performance management, using this to set targets and improve provision and outcomes for all children
- Encourage high standards of behaviour from pupils, built on rules and routines that are understood by staff and pupils, and clearly demonstrated by all adults in school
- Use consistent and fair approaches to managing behaviour, in line with the school’s behaviour policy
- Ensure that parents, carers and children at the school are well informed about the direction, priorities, curriculum and children’s attainment and progress
Teaching, curriculum and assessment
The headteacher will:
- Ensure the teaching of a broad, balanced and coherent curriculum
- Promote the outstandingly creative, inventive and varied curriculum for which the school has become known for, thereby creating enthusiastic and motivated life-long learners
- Establish and sustain high-quality teaching across all EYFS subjects, based on evidence
- Ensure teaching is underpinned by EYFS subject expertise
- Ensure a culture of challenge and support where all children become engaged in their own learning, through the EYFS framework, and achieve their full potential
- Effectively use formative assessment to inform strategy, decisions and the governing body
- Use valid, reliable and proportionate approaches to assessing pupils’ knowledge and understanding of the curriculum
- Establish curriculum leadership, ensuring staff have access to professional networks and communities
Special educational needs and disabilities (SEND)
The headteacher will:
- Be the named Special Educational Needs Coordinator
- Promote an atmosphere of inclusion and a commitment to high quality, inclusive differentiated teaching, by all teachers, for all pupils
- Coordinate provision for inclusion and SEND; overseeing the day to day operation of the school’s Inclusion and SEND policy and coordinating the contribution of external agencies
- Develop and implement policies and practices for the subject (EYFS and SEND) which reflect the school’s commitment to high achievement, effective teaching and learning
- Use observation, assessment and data effectively to identify pupils who are underachieving in the subject and, where necessary, create and implement effective plans of action to support those pupils, with regular reviews
- Ensure effective systems of communication, including feedback , to establish a clear, shared understanding of the importance and role of the subject in order to plan and support next steps in learning
- Have ambitious expectations for all pupils with SEN and disabilities
- Create a climate that enables all staff to develop and maintain positive attitudes towards the subject and confidence in teaching it
- Make sure the school works effectively with parents, carers and professionals to identify additional needs and provide support and adaptation where appropriate
- Produce high-quality written reports and evidence to support children’s learning
- Make successful funding applications to support children’s learning and transition into the next phase of education
- Analyse and interpret relevant national, local and school data, plus research and inspection evidence, to inform policies, practices, expectations, targets and teaching methods
- Up-to-date knowledge of National and local initiatives which may impact upon policy and practice
- Make sure the school fulfils statutory duties regarding the SEND Code of Practice.
Managing the school
The headteacher will:
- Be responsible for daily operational management of the school and work with the Federation Business Leader to ensure premises, resources, administration and ICT systems are effective and fit for purpose
- Be the named Designated Safeguarding Lead of the school
- Ensure staff and pupils’ safety and welfare through effective approaches to safeguarding, as part of a duty of care
- Understand, implement and comply with relevant legislation in implementing effective safeguarding procedures, promoting the welfare of children, staff and visitors
- Actively promote positive staff wellbeing and manage staff effectively with due attention to workload
- Exercise effective financial management and budget control
- Maintain and develop further organisational structures that ensure the effective delivery of services, including efficient deployment of staff, which reflect good value for money
- Ensure rigorous approaches to identifying, managing and mitigating risk
Governance, accountability and working in partnership
The headteacher will:
- Understand and welcome the role of effective governance, including accepting responsibility
- Ensure that staff understand their professional responsibilities and are held to account
- Ensure the school effectively and efficiently operates within the required regulatory frameworks and meets all statutory duties
- Work successfully with schools in the federation, other schools and organisations
- Maintain working relationships with fellow professionals and colleagues to improve educational outcomes for all pupils