Teacher of English

Why choose Allerton High School?

• Culture of high expectations: teachers can teach and students can learn
• Community: a diverse, harmonious and respectful school community
• Ambition: consistently strong progress, high aspirations and motivated students
• Support: well-established systems, a wide CPD offer, highly visible senior      leadership team
• Staff morale: a sensible approach to workload, high morale, low staff turnover

Allerton High School is a large, over-subscribed comprehensive school in North Leeds. Following recent expansion due to high demand in the local area, we now accept 280 students into Year 7 and have a thriving Sixth Form with over 400 students.

Values and vision:

At Allerton High, our core purpose is ‘enabling young people to achieve success.’ We want all students to achieve the best they can, become independent learners and acquire the skills and qualities they will need to be successful in an ever-changing world. We want them to feel valued and to be happy and confident. We work in close partnership with our community, parents/carers and governors to achieve this ideal and to deliver what we consider to be a first class education.

We value: hard work, kindness, perseverance, aspiration, service to others, courtesy, honesty and tolerance. As such, we ask all members of our community to:

· Be Kind;

· Work Hard;

· Challenge Yourself

Our most recent Ofsted was in December 2018 where the school was judged ‘Outstanding’ in all areas. Students make excellent academic progress during their time with us, but they are also encouraged to do their best in all spheres of learning.  We have worked closely with our community to ensure we have provided excellent systems of care, guidance and support so that students know how to keep themselves safe, happy and healthy.

What is it like to work here?

At Allerton High School, we believe that high quality teaching is the most important lever we have to maximise engagement and success for our students. We have a sensible and evidence-informed approach to classroom practice; we believe that high quality teaching and learning is informed by prior knowledge, centred upon the most effective pedagogical strategies and committed to ensuring all students make progress and are challenged to aim high.

At AHS, teaching and learning and behaviour management are inextricably linked. Our Key Classroom Expectations and Learning Zones initiative create predictable classroom environments and instil good learning behaviours. Our well-established Positive Behaviour system, centred upon sanctions and rewards, supports teachers to uphold high standards of behaviour for learning in their classrooms and promotes strong teacher-student relationships.

Our PINS feedback policy has been designed so that that our students receive clear and specific teacher feedback, without placing an unnecessary burden on teacher workload. We believe in timely and bespoke responsive teaching methods and so, where possible, we build intervention into our curriculum offer.

Success:

Our outstanding provision in all areas has enabled our students to consistently achieve success, both academically as well as in a wider sense. For many years, examination results have been extremely strong; GCSE results are consistently in the top 10% of schools nationally for both attainment and progress.

Our students achieve well above local and national averages at both GCSE and A Level in terms of the progress they make and the grades they attain. In 2023, 75% of our Y11 cohort achieved a grade or higher in both English and Maths, which was the highest in the city. Progress 8 was +0.65, significantly above average. The percentage of high grades [7-9] achieved across all subjects was also the highest it has been. The recent successes of our Post-16 students are equally impressive. Although progress wasn’t measured in 2023, the grades achieved were higher than in 2019 (when value-added progress was top in the city). In 2023, 25% of A-level grades were at A*/A, 86% A*-C and 100% A*-E, with an average of a Grade B. Students studying Vocational qualifications also did extremely well, achieving a Distinction- on average. We have a tradition of good progression to Higher Education or employment, including Oxbridge and a range of competitive courses. Disadvantaged students in Year 11 and Post-16 made progress in line with their non-disadvantaged peers and achieve stronger grades than non-disadvantaged students nationally.

We hope you decide to apply for this post, which we consider to be vital to our future success. Please pay particular attention to the Job Description and Person Specification, demonstrating in your letter of application how you meet our requirements.