SCP18 £29,269.00 pro rata (£26,327.47 actual salary) Pay Award Pending

Full Time, Maternity Cover

6 November 2024

Are you an organised and approachable individual?
Then this will be the job for you.
This post provides a unique opportunity to work within a high-performing and growing 11 to 18 grammar school with a large sixth-form and exceptional students.
We are delighted to have been named “Secondary School Of The Year”, “Soaring 57 places in the UK rankings to 77” out of approximately 6000 secondary schools (state and independent) in the latest Sunday Times Parent Power Guide.
About Us:
At Heckmondwike Grammar School, our motivation is for our students to enjoy their school days and to become thoughtful, articulate, confident and responsible members of society. In order to achieve this, we rely on our staff to work closely with students, parents and teachers to provide a supportive community, keeping the well-being of our students at the forefront of everything we do.
The Role:
The Pastoral Leader is a pivotal role, working closely with the Assistant Headteacher for Post-16 to ensure the seamless operation of our Sixth Form. This dynamic position combines all aspects of pastoral leadership, with responsibility for Post 16 Attendance, Behaviour and Wellbeing. The main focus of the role is to remove barriers to learning and achievement, to ensure that all students achieve their full potential. The successful candidate will require highly effective relationships with students, staff and parents, high levels of organisation and time management, alongside emotional intelligence, and empathy for student welfare and achievement.
In addition, the role extends to supporting our recruitment and progression process, including shortlisting and interviewing prospective students, supporting with university applications, and attending results days to ensure successful recruitment and progression.
With a commitment to confidentiality, discretion, and a passion for supporting student success, the Pastoral Leader is an essential member of our Sixth Form team.
Responsibilities
Specific responsibilities are set out in a detailed job description.
What will you bring to the role?

• A highly organised, decisive, emotionally intelligent and enthusiastic professional who can work calmly, efficiently and effectively as part of a team and who works well under pressure and on their own initiative;
• Someone who has understanding of and empathy for the individual needs of students.
• A dynamic, motivated individual, with a ‘can-do’ attitude who is able to enthuse, inspire, support and challenge students and staff.
• A clear and effective communicator, with excellent listening skills, who is able to converse with students, staff and other professionals with precision, professionalism and confidence.

Why Should You Apply?
Heckmondwike Grammar School is a unique school, with students who are eager to learn, keen to know more and want to enjoy their educational experiences. It is exceptional in many ways: a very diverse school community that produces results of the highest quality. We work effectively with the young people, really care about them and their futures and have an ultimate success measure of enabling them to proceed to where they want to go.
Excellent relationships between staff and students are the norm, expectations are high and students perform very well as a consequence.
We also offer a competitive salary and membership to a Local Government pension scheme.
Protection of children:
Disclosure of criminal background of those with access to children.
All posts involving direct contact with children are exempt from the Rehabilitation of Offenders Act 1974. However, amendments to the Exceptions Order 1975 (2013 & 2020) provide that certain convictions and cautions are ‘protected’. These are not subject to disclosure to employers and cannot be taken into account. Guidance and criteria on the filtering of these cautions and convictions can be found on
Shortlisted candidates will be asked to provide details of unspent convictions and those that would not be filtered prior to the date of the interview. You may be asked for further information about your criminal history during the recruitment process. If your application is successful, this self-disclosure information will be checked against information from the Disclosure and Barring Service before your appointment is confirmed.
Safeguarding Statement:
Heckmondwike Grammar School is committed to safeguarding and promoting the welfare of its students and expects all employees and volunteers to share this commitment.

Heckmondwike Grammar School is a unique school, with students who are eager to learn, keen to know more and want to enjoy their educational experiences. It is exceptional in many ways: a very diverse school community that produces results of the highest quality. We work effectively with the young people, really care about them and their futures and have an ultimate success measure of enabling them to proceed to where they want to go. Excellent relationships between staff and students are the norm, expectations are high and students perform very well as a consequence.
And for the second year running we are ranked No 2 in the North of England.
This is a fabulous accolade to the whole school community and just reward for years of hard work from staff, students and indeed parents.
The survey includes both GCSE and A level results and is nationally noted as a true measure of school performance using metrics of most interest to parents when selecting a school.
“Such accolades are very pleasing and we are delighted to be recognised, but they only come about because of the week in week out hard work from students and staff and I salute my colleagues and students, they are an exceptional team.” Mr Roberts, Headteacher.
Misbehaviour is rare; and excellent relationships between staff and students are the norm: teachers are able to ‘get on and teach’. Working here is still challenging, however, but in different ways: expectations are high and potential applicants will need to be able to operate effectively in a top performing environment. However, one of the principal joys of working at this school is our eloquent and motivated students. Consequently, outcomes are amongst the very best in the country, and this is the result of able cohorts being provided with high quality teaching that is supported by strong pastoral care for each student. The school is justifiably proud of the focus on academic attainment and knowledge of each individual that enables education to be tailored to every student’s needs; but also prioritises the support it provides to enable any barriers to progress to be addressed. The focus is and will always remain teaching and learning in the classroom, with staff training and development being the main means of achieving this end.
The school is very popular and heavily oversubscribed, with well over 800 students applying for entry into Year 7 each year- and a similar number applying to join the sixth form. This has led to an increase in provision over the last three years as the school has expanded from 150 students in Year 7 to, this coming year, 210. Accompanied by one of the largest comprehensive sixth forms in the country of approximately 500, this provides great opportunities for staff to practise their craft to the highest level while also gaining a wide experience of teaching different year groups and courses. The sixth form includes an equal number of students who join us from other local schools, and consequently collaboration is very important to us. We work in partnership with an extensive group of schools and have a significant reputation both locally and nationally. This means we offer our staff opportunities to be involved in professional development on a larger scale and see it as a sign of our high quality when members of our community are promoted to posts elsewhere, or progress internally. As a result, all staff feel very privileged to work here and to work with our young people.