Required from April or September 2024 Lea Hall Academy is a special school for young people with social, emotional and mental health difficulties (SEMH) aged 5-14. Lea Hall Academy is part of Forward Education Trust, a growing Multi Academy Trust established in 2017 serving special schools across the West Midland area.

We are seeking an ethical leader with a track record of outstanding practise. The successful candidate will be an exemplary teacher who is highly experienced, enthusiastic, and motivated to share in the leadership and management of our school.

Our pupils all have an EHCP that identifies their additional needs as SEMH. We recognise that there is a high correlation between identified SEMH and difficulties with communication. This means that our pupils need the very best teaching in English from someone who is able to respond to their individual needs. We want our pupils to be inspired and challenged, but we also want someone who will care about them as individuals. Sometimes our pupils display challenging behaviour – we know there is always a reason for this. We are looking to appoint an Assistant Headteacher who will work alongside us to address the issues beneath the behaviour. We are ambitious for our pupils to be successful in all areas of their life – including English and Communication.

We are at an exciting point in our development as a school. We were part way through a rapid school improvement process when we were visited by Ofsted in July 2023. We are clear about our school improvement priorities and are confident that we are making progress. We are looking for an Assistant Headteacher to join a recently created school leadership team that is already demonstrating impact.

Our new Assistant Headteacher role will be responsible for developing the English curriculum across the school and will have a teaching commitment of up to 0.6 FTE. We are looking for someone who can create engaging programmes of study for English and who can convince pupils that they can be successful learners in this subject. We need their individual needs to be addressed and we want them to be stretched to achieve more – whilst enjoying themselves!

We recognise the connections between progress in English and improved Communication and are looking for our new Assistant Headteacher to creatively weave this all together. The school is supported by a speech and language therapist – this is an exciting opportunity to create an innovative approach to delivering English.

Forward Education Trust provides a wide range of professional development opportunities for all its staff. This includes online learning, school based and Trust wide training, support to access national professional qualifications and individualised advice / mentoring around professional development. In addition, our new staff team at Lea Hall will have opportunities to further their expertise in working with pupils with SEMH, ASD, sensory needs and speech and language support. We are allocating specific time at the start of the new school year to induct and develop our new leadership team.

For more information, and to request an application pack, please contact Jodie Massie at Hays Education on:

T: 07761446571

E: [email protected]

Closing date: 9.00am – Wednesday 24th January 2024

Interviews – Tuesday 30th January 2024

* We reserve the right to close this vacancy sooner if necessary. Candidates are encouraged to return their application as soon as possible.

Visits to the school can be arranged by contacting Jodie Massie who will liaise with the school.

We have allocated time at the end of the school day for visits on Wed 17th January 3.30 – 5.00pm and Tuesday 23rd January 3.30 – 5.00pm

Please also see our recruitment site for more information on working at Forward Education Trust: https://webmicrosites.hays.com/web/lea-hall-academy

This post is covered by Part 7 of the Immigration Act (2016) and therefore the ability to speak fluent and spoken English is an essential requirement for this role. Please note that only standard Forward Education Trust Application forms will be accepted, we will not read accompanying Curriculum Vitae (CV). Enhanced DBS clearance, Disqualification (regulations) 2009, prohibition checks and if overseas trained, Certificate of good conduct will need to be obtained if applicable prior to interview.

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