Vice Principal (Care), Easter or September 2024, L19-23

Are you ready to take on a significant leadership role in an exceptional school? Can you bring experience of leading effective pastoral support of students, which makes a difference to their outcomes and their future lives? Do you believe wholeheartedly that education, in its widest sense, improves lives and is a positive force for change? If so come and join us at Great Western Academy in this important and influential role.

Great Western Academy opened in September 2018 and now accommodates over 950 students in years 7 to 11 and the Sixth Form. The school is heavily oversubscribed in years 7 to 11 and the Sixth Form is flourishing. Our philosophy of Achievement, Care and Excellence permeates all we do, with Care firmly at the centre of this. We believe that to Achieve and Excel students need to be Cared for, but also need to Care for each other, for their local environment, and for the world they live in. We use the phrase “Work Hard, Be Kind” to summarise what we expect of students and to create a culture of positive support where students behave well and are able to thrive, whatever their needs, and where they are proactively and effectively safeguarded.

The successful candidate will have the chance to further shape our pastoral support, from the behaviour policy to our attendance strategy, how we safeguard students, and the wealth of opportunities we provide to support and develop our students into positive and effective young adults. You will join an energetic and forward-looking senior leadership team, and lead a dedicated team of two Assistant Principals and nine further staff whose roles focus on pastoral needs but who work closely with academic leaders to make a strong, single team focusing on giving students the very best educational experience.

Our first GCSE results in summer 2023 showed that the progress made by the large majority of our first cohort of year 11 students has been excellent, particularly in English and Maths. This includes students of all abilities, with those with EHCPs particularly successful, several of them progressing to our Sixth Form. The results of our first three A-level cohorts in summer 2021, 2022 and 2023 were excellent and enabled 98% of university applicants to take up their offers, including three to Oxford and Cambridge; students have also secured prestigious apprenticeships with companies such as with Airbus and Rolls Royce. We believe firmly that strong outcomes follow from high expectations, high quality teaching, and strong support in terms of behaviour structures and targeted academic and pastoral interventions.

Our priority is very much to recruit the best classroom practitioners who can ensure our students arrive at the Academy excited about the day ahead and leave each day talking about the excellent learning they have experienced. Our attendance is well above national average and the best of any Swindon secondary school reflecting strong engagement from students and their families.

If you are capable of taking what is already strong and making it even better, we are very keen to hear from you about how you can enhance and develop our leadership team for the benefit of our students.

Additional benefits of working at GWA include: 

• Average class sizes of 26 in years 7 to 11 
• Excellent CPD programme 
• State of the art facilities  
• Leading edge ICT, including a laptop provided for all staff  and students
• Free Medical and Wellbeing Support Service 
• Easy access to the A419 with free parking on site 

Further details are available on the Academy website and in the information for applicants and job description attached.  

Applications should be submitted electronically to recruitment email by 9am on Wednesday 17th January. Interviews will take place on Tuesday 23rd January.