Teacher of Mathematics
Comberton Village College
Cambridgeshire
- New
- Quick apply
- Salary:
- MPS/UPS
- Job type:
- Full Time, Part Time, Permanent
- Apply by:
- 18 November 2024
Job overview
We are a highly successful, community centred, comprehensive school with Teaching School status in a pleasant rural setting only 5 miles from the centre of Cambridge. We currently have around 1900 11-18 pupils on roll, including Comberton Sixth Form which was established in 2011 in a purpose built sixth form extension.
Our pupils are well motivated, staff morale is excellent and examination results at KS4 are outstanding. Pupil outcomes across KS4 and KS5 place us amongst the best secondary schools and colleges in the country. The school has consistently been rated by Ofsted as Outstanding over very many years. In addition to offering GCSE Maths, we also have well established programs offering GCSE Statistics, Level 2 Further Maths and Level 1 Number and Measure to both stretch and support our KS4 cohorts. At KS5 we find that more students chose A Level maths than any other A Level, and we aim to have a maths qualification to suit students who wish to continue engaging with the subject post 16 including Core Maths, Further Maths and Maths Enrichment options where students can support the students in the younger year groups with their maths.
Teaching maths at Comberton Village College is about more than producing good grades, with a significant focus on developing our pupils to be well rounded mathematicians. We offer various Maths Challenges – with AMSP and the UKMT, we run trips and we have curriculum immersion opportunities throughout the year to students of all years. Comberton Village College is also an AMSP Partner school and three AMSP Area Coordinators are based at our college.
We are seeking to appoint an excellent teacher to join our vibrant and friendly maths department. Our philosophy is to play to the strengths in our team: we have a fully resourced KS3-5 curriculum to support staff wellbeing and pedagogical development, but staff are also encouraged to teach in the way which works best for them and there is no requirement to use the centrally planned resources or to teach topics in a particular way. All staff are encouraged to engage with their own professional development either through externally run course, the Trust CPD offer or internally with our weekly pedagogy and problem solving sessions.
This is an exciting time to join our maths department: The Cam Academy Trust are proud to be the base for the Cambridge Maths Hub. In this role we are helping every school and college access locally tailored and quality support to develop the teaching and learning of mathematics. Many members of the Comberton maths department have gone on to lead work groups for the Maths Hub or to work for them on secondments.
The department is involved with various NCETM and Maths Hub projects and has recently become involved with the Teaching for Mastery project, with Secondary Mastery Specialists based at the school. We are proud to be a teaching school and many members of the department have a significant focus on initial teacher education and continuing professional development. Experimenting with teaching techniques is encouraged with several members of the department being involved in research. We look forward to welcoming new team members and the ideas they bring to the department.
The school has moved to one-to-one devices for students, with all students in years 7-11 now having their own iPad. All staff also have their own iPad, as well as their own laptop, which can be used for projecting and interacting with student devices. We are excited to see how we grow with this technology and have a specific focus on this within the department this year.
For suitably experienced candidates, we can offer the opportunity to teach lessons at Comberton Sixth Form. This could be teaching a class from our large cohort of A Level Maths or Further Maths pupils. We were early adopters of the Core Maths qualification and now have growing numbers of students taking this option so you could also teach this exciting course.
We have a strong track record of supporting and developing our teaching staff. Our programme includes:
- Continuing support for those in their ECT years through a guaranteed place on the highly rated Developing Effecting Teaching programme. This includes four days of specialist pedagogic support and observation opportunities.
- ECTs also benefit from additional non-contact time that can be used for coaching, observation and co-planning with an identified mentor drawn from the experienced staff in the maths department.
- For experienced teachers the school appreciates the need for time out to reflect on what makes excellent practice. Teachers are offered a place on the Developing Outstanding Teaching programme which features four days looking at high-level skills and strategies for the classroom including a focus on how coaching and mentoring can develop other colleagues and lead change in the department.
- Staff are also encouraged to participate in the many excellent Maths Hub work groups which the Cambridge Maths Hub offers.
- Those maths teachers who are interested have been supported to complete their Master’s in Education degree.
- For staff interested in supporting new teachers, we offer access to the development opportunities offered through our teaching school alliance (camteach.org.uk), including opportunities to develop as an ITT or an ECT mentor.
If you would like to see an overview of the whole school including the maths department, please go to: www.combertonvc.org/about-us/open-evening.php.
Attached documents
About Comberton Village College
- Comberton Village College
- West Street, Comberton, Cambridge
- Cambridgeshire
- CB23 7DU
- United Kingdom
We are a highly successful, community mixed comprehensive school with Teaching School status in a pleasant rural setting only 5 miles from the centre of Cambridge. We currently have around 1,800 11-18 pupils on roll including our new sixth form centre that opened in September 2011. Our pupils are well motivated, staff morale is excellent and examination results at KS4 are outstanding: 78% of grades including Maths and English were A*-C and 39% of grades were A*/A: At KS5, the Sixth Form’s results are in the top 5% nationally for student progress made against predictors, with 38% of all grades in 2016 at A*/A grades.
The College
Comberton Village College was opened in 1960. As a Cambridgeshire Village College, it was designed to be a centre for the life of its community and to provide quality education for pupils aged between 11 and 16. This remains the case today.
In 1974, the school became fully comprehensive and, in April 1993, it became grant-maintained. It changed to a Foundation School and more recently became a Foundation School with a Trust: the Comberton Educational Trust. In February 2011 the school became an Academy overseen by the CAM Academy Trust. The pupil roll is around 1,800 while over 2,000 adults use the college for a wide range of continuing education and leisure activities. A £7 million building programme was completed in 2003 that has significantly enhanced a whole range of the school’s facilities, including major new leisure facilities. A further £4 million building project provided further specialist teaching and learning facilities across a range of subject areas and has been in use since September 2009.
Our Sixth Form opened in September 2011 following the completion of a £9.5 million building project. It offers a strong suite of academic courses, across the subject areas in conjunction with The AQA Baccalaureate, as well as applied courses. This exciting development has enabled students from Comberton to complete their sixth-form studies with us as well as providing opportunities for students from other local schools. There are already over 320 students in the Sixth Form and this is set to expand further.
The Cam Academy Trust
In 2011, the Comberton Academy Trust (C.A.T.) was formed, enabling Comberton Village College to convert to Academy status in 2011. the Trust has continued to expand and in 2016 was renamed the Cam Academy Trust. The Trust now has the following schools:
· Comberton Village College, an 11-18 Academy, is the initial school which formed what is now The Cam Academy Trust
· Melbourn Village College, an 11-16 Academy in Cambridgeshire. This Academy joined the Trust in September 2013.
· Cambourne Village College, an 11-16 Academy in Cambridgeshire, close to Comberton Village College. This has been opened as a new Free School by the Trust from September 2013, initially with an intake of Year 7 students only. It serves the new and developing community of Cambourne that was formally in the catchment area of Comberton Village College. Numbers of staff are now teaching at both Cambourne and Comberton Village Colleges as both Academies work extremely closely together.
· Gamlingay First School and St Peter’s, Huntingdon, both joined us in September 2016.
· Hartford Infants and Hartford Juniors joined us in January 2017.
Jeavons Wood Primary School is set to join the Trust this year and there is the possibility that the Trust could develop further, although this remains an open question. We are seeking to ensure that all Academies in the Trust work in effective partnership with each other and that there are opportunities for staff to share ideas and resources. For some staff, there will be opportunities to work in more than one Academy.
Standards
Comberton Village College has received a full Ofsted inspection on three occasions since 2000: in 2004, 2007 and 2013. On each occasion, the overall effectiveness grade has been ‘outstanding’. In the latest inspection in 2013, every aspect of the school’s provision was judged to be ‘outstanding’. This included the first ever judgement on Sixth Form provision where both teaching and achievement were both clearly deemed already to be ‘outstanding’. The short summary was:
“Comberton Village College is a highly successful school which enables its pupils to achieve not only academic excellence but also to become mature, confident, thoughtful and rounded individuals with clear goals for their future lives”.
Broad Education
The school’s formal day runs from 8.30 a.m. to 2.50 p.m. with 6 timetabled lessons of 50 minutes each day. Pupils see their tutors daily and have a weekly assembly.
However, we believe that true education is broad and should develop character and individual interest. Given this, there is also a very full and wide-ranging extra-curricular programme that runs each day from 3.00 p.m. There are also many school trips and visits, both national and international. We have significant school partnerships that involve exchanges in Europe, Peru, South Africa and Mozambique.
We consider the following as very important:
· Our major Duke of Edinburgh programme. Most pupils do the Bronze award with many continuing to Silver. Some now also progress to the Gold award in our Sixth Form.
· We have held the Arts Mark Gold Award for a number of years, a symbol of our commitment to excellence and breadth in Arts education and provision.
· We have been accredited as a British Council International School since 2002, a sign of our commitment to the international dimension of education.
Aims and Values
At the heart of what we do are fundamental aims and values relating to education. The Cam Academy Trust has five core principles that must be central to all Academies in the Trust. These have been at the heart of Comberton Village College for many years:
· The Excellence Principle. Education must be of highest of standards and lead to high achievement.
· The Comprehensive Principle. Excellent education must be for all pupils of all types and abilities.
· The Henry Morris Principle. Education should be rooted in and serve its local community.
· The Partnership Principle. We should always look to work in effective partnership with others for mutual benefit.
· The International Principle. There must be a clear international dimension to education.
Within these over-arching principles, we seek to ensure that all of our pupils reach their full, positive potential and become:
CAPABLE in the skills relevant to their future lives and in having the knowledge which will increase their understanding, appreciation and interest in the world in which they live.
CARING of others and considerate of the mutual dependence human beings have on each other.
CONFIDENT of their worth because they have developed their strengths, understood their weaknesses and learnt that they can achieve success.
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