Learning Support Assistant

Villiers is a highly successful, 11-19 co-educational school with students from a variety of religions, faiths and countries. They work, play and flourish together in our outstanding learning environment developing respect and understanding for each other so that they are well prepared for their adult lives. All visitors to the school comment positively on the warmth of welcome, harmonious atmosphere around the school and the focused attitude of pupils.

We have grown in size and popularity over the last few years, a reflection of our high standards and our fantastic achievements. Currently we have just over 1400 pupils and nearly 110 teaching and support staff. This means that whilst we are small enough to retain a friendly atmosphere and know everyone’s face, the school is large enough to offer a full range of academic and vocational subjects taught by specialist teachers.

The school also has a rapidly improving Sixth Form with just over 210 students taking a variety of Advanced Level and BTEC courses. Academically we establish good working habits in an environment that is wholly conducive to learning and study. Our results have been improving year on year and our progress 8 data has put our performance among the top 12% in the country. This demonstrates that we are bringing about effective learning whilst maintaining concern for the individual.

Although we take great pride in our high achievers, we are particularly proud that ALL of our students leave with sound qualifications on which to build their future.

Perks of working at Villiers

We have a huge suite of professional learning opportunities in school and use our PMR system combined with staff aspirations to construct this. Staff are encouraged and supported financially to become examination markers and to carry out extra qualifications such as the NPQ* suite, Master’s Degrees and Doctorates. All teams belong to their professional subject association in order to continue developing their subject knowledge and pedagogy. Middle and Senior Leaders regularly meet with their counterparts from other schools in the local authority to collaborate and share best practice as part of the Ealing Learning Partnership. *National Professional Qualifications including NPQML, NPQSL and NPQH.

On Thursdays staff finish teaching early so they can meet and plan collaboratively with their departments and pastoral teams. Staff professional learning also takes place on this day as do any other after school meetings and events such as parent’s evenings so that staff only ever have to plan child-care or a late finish one night of the week. Where meetings or events run later in the evening we provide a meal for all staff.

We do not grade lessons and all visits to lessons are formative. We recognise that walking into a lesson a few times a year only gives a small snapshot of the work our teachers are doing so created Bespoke Performance Coaching where staff plan together, observe the planning in action and review the lesson together focusing on strengths and areas for development collaboratively.

Staff work with their performance manager to set targets which will see them develop over the course of the year but none of them rely on arbitrary unreliable data or one-off snapshot lesson visits.

Puipls are entitled to free breakfast every day in our canteen and staff have access to free tea and coffee making facilities are available throughout the day in the staff room.

Staff can take on extra duties and are paid to do this as well as receiving a free meal.

We have a well-being week once a year where staff’s health is put in the spotlight. A range of opportunities to support their mental and physical health is on offer that week but many of these are available throughout the year by speaking to our H.R. manager. Staff are able to access counselling free if and when the need arises and there is a complete staff and pupil mental health plan in action which is reviewed regularly.

Pupils’ behaviour is exemplary (as can be seen from our recent Ofsted report in May 2019) so you are able to share your passion for your subject with the pupils rather than having to zoo-keep!

Our newly qualified teachers’ programme has been highly commended by the local authority and is personalised to the needs of every teacher. We recognise that staff will join us having had very different experiences and with different areas to work on in their practice so we make sure our programme reflects this. One fear new teachers often have is that they will get given all of the ‘horrible’ groups that no one else wants. First, we have no horrible groups (!) and second, our Heads of Department work hard to create a timetable which develops all staff’s skills so you will often see NQTs team teaching with more experienced practitioners to develop their understanding of GCSE and A level before they become fully accountable for the results.

We welcome a broad range of Initial Teacher Training programmes at school from Teach First to PGCE. Our Assistant Headteacher oversees all programmes and these are personalised to the needs of the programme and the individual.

We are located about 7 minutes’ walk from Southall train station (on TFL Rail) or a short bus journey from Ealing Broadway (Central line). There is free bicycle storage and staff parking available on site and staff showers are available should you wish to jog in as several of our staff do.

Our staff room was renovated in 2019 and has very energy efficient and modern kitchen facilities as well as comfortable seating and a work area with several computers and a photocopier/printer. The sixth form area and Design Technology areas were also renovated in the same year and boast state of the art learning facilities. Future plans include significantly updating our sports facilities, a brand new building and play areas.