Chief Education Director
Northern Star Academies Trust
North Yorkshire & West Yorkshire
- £101,067 - £111,470 per year
- New
- Salary:
- L32-L36 £101,067 - £111,470
- Job type:
- Full Time, Permanent
- Start date:
- 01.01.2024 or as soon as possible
- Apply by:
- 22 September 2024
Job overview
We are looking for an exceptional leader to become our new Chief Education Director to drive our education strategy and delivery across our primary and secondary schools.
This is an exciting new role within our organisation at a pivotal moment for our Trust Partnership. We have recently grown to fifteen schools, doubling in size, serving vibrant and diverse communities across North and West Yorkshire.
Join us and you’ll find a collaborative culture of inclusion, growth, and purpose, supported by aspirational and values-led headteachers, trust leaders and an ambitious board of trustees.
Alongside our commitment to continuous school improvement, as a Trust Partnership we have been trailblazers in environmental sustainability and climate change education. We are looking for someone who shares this passion.
About the role
The purpose of the role is to ensure that children in NSAT schools get the best opportunities to thrive and be successful. The new Director will combine strategy development and the practical delivery of school improvement to achieve this.
As a key member of the Trust’s Executive Leadership Team, you will to set the strategy for education across our Trust Partnership and share in the responsibility for the performance of the Trust across a range of indicators.
You will lead a highly skilled and committed team of colleagues who support our academies with a combination of school improvement and strategic leadership.
The Director will have oversight of all our schools, prioritising those facing greatest challenge. In the first year, this is likely to involve working closely with a small number of our academies requiring the most support to progress, providing hands-on support, expertise and guidance for the further development of curriculum, assessment, professional development and standards. You will be able to identify priorities for improvement and be confident providing professional challenge and support to leaders to enable change.
You will also be an effective champion for development across the whole Trust, building capacity for innovative approaches to education. You will bring the latest research and thinking from the sector to our Trust, supporting leaders to shape imaginative practice in their schools.
About you
We are looking for someone with current knowledge of primary and secondary education which has been acquired through successful headship experience. It is likely that your headship experience has been in primary schools, ideally with some school improvement experience in both phases across a range of school contexts, including those serving the most disadvantaged communities.
You will be:
- an inspirational and a strategic leader with a successful record of educational improvement
- an effective communicator, able to build relationships quickly and effectively with colleagues and academy leaders.
- able to accurately identify areas for academy development and ensure improvement plans are robust and will lead to excellence and/or bring about improvement rapidly.
- able to effectively monitor standards and use quality assurance processes to accurately inform academy and trust leaders about the quality of educational performance in academies.
- able to effectively prepare academies for successful Ofsted inspections.
- able to work directly and intensively with targeted academies to bring about improvements in specific areas; for example, curriculum design, pupil absence, disadvantaged outcomes, progress of SEND pupils, quality of teaching, behaviour etc.
- interested and up to date with latest education policy developments, debate and practice.
- credible and knowledgeable in a wide range of education issues and leadership scenarios
- resilient, dynamic, and keen to lead by example.
- organised, hardworking and able to cope with demanding workloads.
- emotionally intelligent.
Full details about the role can be found in the job description and person specification. For further information about the recruitment information and process, contact Jenny McUrich: mcurichj@nsat.org.uk
We positively welcome visits to the Trust and/or a phone/Teams call with the CEO, Jenn Plews. To arrange a call, please contact Jenny McUrich: mcurichj@nsat.org.uk
Attached documents
About Northern Star Academies Trust
- Northern Star Academies Trust
- Gargrave Road, Skipton
- North Yorkshire
- BD23 1QL
- United Kingdom
Northern Star Academies Trust
As a family of schools we are committed to providing a high quality educational and learning experience for all.
Northern Star Academies Trust is a growing multi-academy trust comprising of four schools: Skipton Girls’ High School (Outstanding) and Harrogate High School (Good with outstanding leadership), New Park Primary Academy (Good) and Hookstone Chase Primary School (Good). This unique partnership is working to develop strong schools, able to serve their local communities by providing high quality learning for children, young people and staff in all roles. The trust currently has academy orders for a further two secondary schools and is in discussion with a further primary school.
Vision
The prime objective of Northern Star is to support and benefit its member academies in providing an excellent education whilst celebrating the individual identity and locality of each school. NSAT is also working to improve the educational standards of underperforming schools in North and West Yorkshire. We will achieve this through Joint Practice Development, by sharing the expertise, resources and best practice already available within the MAT. We will raise standards and develop innovation in teaching and learning by introducing new school improvement structures that successful MATs have already shown support the retention of quality whilst a MAT scales up.
A specific theme of NSAT’s vision is to create a cross-phase MAT with at least one primary school hub of 4 or 6 primary schools and a secondary school hub of 4 to 5 secondary schools by 2018/19. A cross phase MAT requires greater resources to support school improvement structures compared to a MAT operating across a single phase of school i.e. purely primary or purely secondary. However, we believe greater student progress can be achieved by working together with both primary and secondary colleagues. The cross-phase MAT will use the school improvement structure to reduce the divide between primary and secondary provision in pedagogy, assessment and the curriculum. The trust executive believe end-on provision and seamless transition between Key Stage 2 and Key Stage 3 will improve the progress achieved by students.
Looking ahead, the MAT is working to build on the strong working relationship with representatives of local universities, the NSAT Science Hub, STEM network, Northern Lights TSA and other education sector representatives to develop excellence in teaching and learning across the primary and secondary age range. NSAT’s further ambition is to develop innovation in teaching and learning through research based joint practice development across the primary and secondary phases. In doing so, the trust will continue to improve the life chances of the children and young people in its schools and retain an outstanding workforce.
In summary Northern Star academies will work together to:
• Provide excellent learning and outcomes - achieved through strong leadership, professional collaboration and innovation in teaching and learning
• Diminish the difference between the outcomes of disadvantaged and others
• Improve the cross-phase learning of students and staff between KS2 and KS3
• Ensure all Northern Star academies are inclusive
• Provide effective Joint Practice Development across hubs and phases – effective staffing and leadership pipelines to build leadership and teaching capacity
• Achieve economies of scale through a centralised service for HR, Finance, site maintenance, procurement, ICT.
NSAT School improvement model and capacity building:
• We believe successful MATs have made a significant resource commitment to building an effective school improvement team. We will initially direct this funding on the core subjects in order to retain quality whilst scaling up. This funding will support the extension of the small team already in place. With the extended team in place the trust will be well prepared to take on a sponsor project and or a re-brokerage of an academy that has failed to improve. This funding will support the introduction of the core subject School Improvement Directors including those for primary. This team will be flexible and responsive to the changing needs of all schools within the MAT and other under-performing schools, giving colleagues career development opportunities and the chance to make a difference beyond their own contexts
• The executive team brings extensive experience of school improvement. There is a four stage school improvement process led by a range of senior colleagues with identified specialist skills and experience. Senior and middle leaders within NSAT schools can both benefit from this support, and provide support to others.
• The current NSAT executive team will lead the intervention work required by a sponsored project(s) and the development work required in convertor schools. The executive team is comprised of: Andrew Bayston, CEO; Jenn Plews, Deputy CEO who has recently gained NLE status and once again SGHS is an NLE support school; John Barker, Finance Director; Sally Cocker, Operations Director; and Gill Fisher, Director of School Improvement. This executive team is resourced by the surcharge from Year One of the MAT and a previous sponsor capacity award made to SGHS in 2013/14. As a small MAT it has only been possible to create a team of part time contributions. As the trust grows the Trustees are aware of the need to appoint a full time CEO and full time school improvement directors. This will be sustainable from Trust funds when the number of schools and student head count increases. The sponsor capacity grant will support this essential development in part from 09/17 and enable the trust to build capacity just before it’s required.
• Directors of Subject Improvement: we are now ready to create a structure of subject directors with high level teaching and leadership expertise in the core subjects as follows:
· at primary phase 1 Literacy and 1 Numeracy School Improvement Director (SID)
· at secondary phase 1 English, 1 Maths & 1 Science School Improvement Director (SID).
· Working alongside the Executive team and head teachers these positions will drive the first line support and intervention team for a sponsored school or re-brokerage project and will also coordinate the improvement work across good schools.
· The school improvement team will also provide the seed bed for the trust’s leadership pipeline
Andrew Bayston and Jenn Plews
CEO and Deputy CEO
Northern Star Academies Trust
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