Durrington High School

Working at Durrington

At Durrington we have worked hard to develop a culture in our school where teachers and leaders are looked after, supported and professionally enriched. We would love to hear from you if you think that you might want to play a part in the exciting Durrington journey! In an ever-changing educational landscape, we focus on clear priorities:

• Ensuring all staff are able to have a sensible work/life balance - this means that we constantly review what we do, so teachers and leaders are able to focus on their core purpose.
• An evidence informed approach to teaching and CPD - we don’t want our teachers wasting their time on low-impact, gimmicky approaches to teaching. We want them to shape their teaching around what research evidence says is most likely to work.  As one of only 39 Research Schools in the country, we are at the forefront of ensuring everything we do is informed by research evidence.
• Developing and growing our own excellent leaders, who in turn are able to nurture their own high-performing teams.
• Appointing external candidates with shared values, who will thrive in our school.

Looking After Our Staff

At Durrington we know that our staff are our most valuable resource.  As a result, we have put in place a number of strategies to alleviate the pressures on staff. These include:

• We have moved away from a ‘tick-box’ approach to teaching and have embraced a ‘tight but loose’ approach. We want teaching to be tight, in terms of focusing on sound, evidence-informed pedagogical principles, but loose in terms of how this is interpreted in classrooms by subject specialists.
• Each department has developed their own streamlined feedback and homework policies, aimed at reducing workload whilst optimising impact.
• Teachers are not expected to write lengthy reports for students, but to record a current and projected grade for students and a judgement grade for effort and homework. •
• Enhanced pay scales and rapid progression opportunities.
• Teacher non-contact time above the national average.
• We have just three data collection points for each year group in a year, informed by ongoing assessment of student progress.
• We do not grade lesson observations.
• Fortnightly joint planning CPD within curriculum teams saves a significant amount of time for individual teachers.
• INSET days are used for collaborative planning in curriculum teams.
• Teachers are not expected to keep lengthy ‘evidence files’ for appraisal.
• All staff are registered with Healthshield for a range of wellbeing and practical support services with benefits including a variety of treatments for musculoskeletal issues, 24/7 GP and Employee Assistance Programme.