Headteacher - Cayton School
Welcome
Dear Applicant,
Welcome to our dedicated Headteacher recruitment campaign site, which aims to provide you with all the information about Cayton School and the current vacancy.
There is something very special about Cayton School and we are incredibly proud of our school’s warm and welcoming family atmosphere where we place great emphasis on working in partnership with parents/carers, children, governors, and our communities. We aim to achieve our vision by providing high quality education in a safe and caring environment, where children can enjoy their learning and social experiences. This allows them to achieve their full potential and develop as well behaved, polite, happy and confident individuals.
Situated on the outskirts of the beautiful seaside resort of Scarborough, on the East Coast of Yorkshire, the school has close contacts with the local communities and benefits from support from the Parish Council and North Yorkshire County Council.
We believe that Cayton has the capacity for further improvement and that this is an exciting time for an ambitious leader to make a real difference; enhancing teaching and learning, to enrich the personal development of children and ensure all children, staff and governors promote our vision.
It is important to all at Cayton that our new Headteacher has a friendly, outgoing personality with a positive outlook and respect for difference.
For an informal, confidential conversation about the role please call Julie Crichton on 07581143421 or email julie.crichton@northyorks.gov.uk. Julie has been engaged to support us with recruitment to this key role.
Unfortunately, we are not able to offer school visits. We would therefore encourage applicants to look at a short film of life at Cayton School - https://youtu.be/Wqq2_3AY69w and our twitter page to get a feel for our school.
On behalf of the governing body, thank you again for your interest in Cayton School and look forward to receiving your application.
Yours faithfully,
Carol Tindall
Chair of Governors
Cayton is a thriving school situated on the outskirts of the seaside resort of Scarborough, on the East Coast of North Yorkshire. The village is served by good local facilities, a regular public transport network and active Parish Council.
The School was opened in 1972 to replace the old building that had served Cayton since 1877.
We are a supportive school, offering a warm, family friendly atmosphere where our children have respect each other and have a thirst for learning. The children are supported by strong partnerships between staff, parent/carers and Governing Body.
Our children are well behaved, polite, happy and, friendly and engage well with their peers, staff and other adults. They are curious and inquisitive when learning new concepts and, through an academic resilience project, their confidence levels are strengthened. We challenge our children to extend their behaviour beyond the school and to show citizenship at every opportunity.
Primarily, we serve the catchment area of Cayton, Osgodby, Lebberston and Gristhorpe though children do come to us from other areas.
We have excellent facilities including:
- A dedicated Art Room, IT Suite, SEND Room and Cookery suite
- Designated forest school area
- Large playing field
- Separated playgrounds for EYFS / KS1 / KS2
- Outdoor climbing equipment
- On-site private Nursery which provides wrap around care
- Weekly coaching from sports coaches for all year groups (with the exception of EYFS)
- External visits or visitors supplement class topic work
- We have the Healthy School’s Bronze award and are working towards Silver
Governors’ Role and Support for the School and Headteacher
Governors are knowledgeable and have an active role in all areas of the school, including finance, health and safety, supporting in the delivery of the school’s curriculum and reviewing school policies. Governors are assigned to a class to develop pastoral links as well as being responsible for subject areas.
You will be working alongside a committed team of staff and a Governing Body that is ambitious and has high aspirations for all children and staff. The well-being of the Headteacher is very important. For this reason, the Governing Body will provide support as and when needed.
Our staff are our greatest resource and are incredibly committed, loyal and dedicated and always have the best interest of the children at heart. They are determined to find something at which every child can shine. Staff get to know the children in the school very well and use this information to personalise opportunities for learning.
Class teachers lead their support team through shared goals, working in close partnership with parents and carers, Governors and the local community, to provide an excellent educational experience for all.
- How are support staff utilised - In-class support, intervention support and pastoral support
- SLT structure - Headteacher, Deputy Headteacher and DSL
- Number of Teachers and FTE - Head + 8.4 FTE
- Number of classes - 6 x single year group classes
- Details of none-teaching staff – Admin x 1; TA’s x 10 mixture of full / part-time and also GTA, GTA (SEN) and HLTA; 6 x MSA
- Staff relationships - Good, supportive of each other.
Currently Headteacher Responsibilities
- Assistant Designated Safeguarding Lead
- Curriculum, Planning and Assessment
- Mentor for (Initial Teacher Training) students
- Mentor for NQT (Newly Qualified Teachers)
- Staff Appraisal Line Manager (Teaching Staff)
- Music Subject Co-ordinator
- Computing Subject Co-ordinator
- The Friends of Cayton School Link
Deputy Headteacher
- Designated Safeguarding Lead
- Curriculum, Planning and Assessment
- English Subject Co-ordinator
- Mentor for (Initial Teacher Training) students
- Staff Appraisal Line Manager (Teaching Staff)
- The Friends of Cayton School Link
Year 6 Teacher
- Mathematics Subject Co-ordinator
- Geography Subject Co-ordinator
Year 6 Teacher (Currently Maternity Cover)
- History Subject Co-ordinator
- School Council Co-ordinator
- Shadow English Subject Co-ordinator
Year 5 Teacher
- Art Subject Co-ordinator
- Design Technology Subject Co-ordinator
- Staff Wellbeing Champion
Year 4 Teacher (currently on maternity leave)
- History Subject Co-ordinator
- School Council Co-ordinator
- Shadow English Subject Co-ordinator
Year 3 Teacher
- P.E. / Games Subject Co-ordinator
- Educational Visits Co-ordinator
- Whole School Food Culture Leader
- Staff Appraisal Line Manager (Support Staff)
Year 2 Teacher
- Science Subject Co-ordinator
- Forest School’s Co-ordinator
Year 1 Teacher
- PSHCE Subject Co-ordinator
- SRE Co-ordinator
- Designated Safeguarding Lead
- Language Links Co-ordinator
- SENCo (shared)
EYFS Teacher (0.6)
- R.E. Subject Co-ordinator
EYFS Teacher (0.4)
- SMSC and British Values Co-ordinator (with SLT)
SENCo (0.3)
- SENCo (shared)
- Deputy Designated Safeguarding Lead
- Looked After Children Designated Teacher
- Gifted and Talented Designated Teacher
- The Friends Link Teacher
Our Vision - “Learn from yesterday, seek today and aim for tomorrow”
We believe that children should strive to be the best they can be and work with them to enhance their personal development. Children, staff and Governors are encouraged to promote our vision.
School Mission Statement
Our Mission is to deliver the highest educational standards, enabling children and adults to grow, learn and work together in a caring atmosphere where laughter, respect, trust and harmony are highly valued
Our Educational Aims are to:
- Help the children to develop lively, enquiring and creative minds
- Foster and develop self-confidence and self-esteem
- Help the children acquire knowledge, skills and understanding that will enable them to adapt to a rapidly changing world
- Provide a happy, secure, purposeful environment where learning experiences will be both challenging and stimulating
- Develop an inclusive curriculum that will foster relevant thinking, communication and information skills using supportive technologies
- Help ensure the children understand and respect religious, spiritual and moral values in a multi-cultural society showing tolerance of other groups, races, ways of life and points of view
- Encourage adults and children to take pride in their immediate environment and to understand and contribute to the care of the community in which they live and work
- Foster friendship and respect regarding all within the school community of equal importance
- Encourage parents and school to work together to educate and care for the whole child
- Build and develop positive attitudes through hard work, commitment and self-discipline to maximise achievement
In the most recent Ofsted October 2019 - "Cayton School continues to be a Good School.... Pupils feel safe and enjoy their time at School.... Staff encourage pupils to try hard and do their best." Ofsted October 2019
Ofsted
Cayton School was judged “good” at its last Ofsted Inspection – October 2019
Current School Strengths
- Established inclusive leadership Leaders know the School, their staff and pupils and are ambitious in their vision and drive for improvement.
- Staff compliment the skills and strengths of the Leadership team and of each other. All teaching staff have subject leadership responsibilities and contribute to decision-making. We are committed to nurturing the expertise of our staff and supporting them to enhance their leadership skills
- Governors use the skills audit framework to ensure their skill set meets the requirements of successful Governance. Meetings are well attended and the Chair of regularly meets with the Headteacher to ensure the work of the leadership team and wider school community enhances the provision Cayton offers it pupils.
- During 2019 - 2020 the entire curriculum offer was reviewed. The resulting curriculum, which focuses on progression of knowledge throughout a child's time with us, was implemented in September 2020. The curriculum covers national content but is supplemented by a 'school based' curriculum, which celebrates learning opportunities that are specific to the School and its location. External visits play an important part in the enrichment of a child's learning opportunities.
- Following the review of the School's curriculum, it was imperative for the School's progress and attainment tracking system to be streamlined directly with the learning objectives in each year group’s curriculum. The system tracks children half-termly in all core and foundation subjects.
- Dedicated SENCo who oversees all aspects of SEN and Safeguarding.
- Recently achieved the Bronze Healthy School award and working towards submitting evidence for the Silver award.
- The school was successful in attracting funding for speech and language support from the New Opportunities Area funding. Working with four other schools, we have been able to establish a whole school screening process with follow up support and interventions. In addition to in-house support, an accredited speech and language therapist, provides additional support on a weekly basis.
School Improvement Plan and Key Priorities
- A recent inspection has taken place under the new inspection framework and that there are opportunities for the new Headteacher to develop reading and curriculum leadership.
- Leaders have prioritised reading across the school. In a small number of cases, the books that pupils read are too challenging. This can make successful reading difficult for some pupils. Leaders need to ensure that the words in reading books match the sounds that pupils already know more closely and that the books older pupils read are more carefully matched to their reading skills (OfSTED Action Point).
- The curriculum is generally appropriately planned and sequenced. However, a minority of subject leaders do not systematically support staff to develop their planning and sequencing skills. This means that in some subjects, the planned activities do not build on pupils’ existing knowledge and some activities do not always take learning forward.
- Provide additional challenge for identified Middle Attaining children along with Higher Attaining children to achieve greater depth across School.
- Provide additional intervention for identified children from all ability groups to bridge identified gaps in learning as a result of Covid-19 School closure
- Through an academic resilience project (improving children’s understanding of health, fitness and wellbeing), enable our ‘vulnerable’ children to achieve better outcomes than their circumstances might have predicted.
- To improve the overall attendance of children to at least 96% at the School and reduce the percentage of persistent absentees from 12.1% to at least 6% or less.
The school has strong relationships with parents/carers and effective channels of communication through email, class Dojo. Class teachers are visible in the playground each day for parents to talk to, or appointments can be arranged through the school reception.
Local and Wider Community
We have good relationships with the wider community, including the Parish Council. We have a PTA that in the past has run regular events including Christmas and Summer fayres, Easter bakes sales and School discos. Christmas carol signing takes place outside the village pub and the school are invited to take part. Our Head and Deputy Headteachers have in the past judged the villages Christmas lights competition run by the Parish Council.
As Cayton is part of the primary network across the North Yorkshire Coast we have been fortunate to be part of the DFE North Yorkshire Coast Opportunity Area which is now in its fourth year.
The Opportunity Area (OA) supports ambition and outcomes on social mobility across Scarborough, Whitby and Filey with projects focussing on early years, phonics, literacy, attendance and teacher recruitment and development. More information on the OA can be found here.
Being able to attract and recruit the very best teachers and leaders to our area is vital to our schools continuing development. As such we are able to offer a relocation package of up to £8k for our new Headteacher if they are having to relocate to take up post. More details can be found here.
Scarborough
Scarborough has so much to offer anyone interested in culture and heritage, including a world-class theatre, a thriving live music scene and an active Arts culture. The magnificent Scarborough Castle towers over the town, overlooking the two sweeping bays. The spectacular ruins are in the care of English Heritage, and provide a stunning backdrop for re-enactments. Scarborough has two much-loved Victorian funicular lifts, one of which was the first cliff tram in England. Lovers of vintage transport will also want to ride on the North Bay Miniature Railway, one of the oldest in the country, which transports visitors in style from Peasholm Park to Scalby Mills
Scarborough also boasts a new Sports Village and clubs and facilities for most sports and physical activity, including opportunities for surfing, outdoor swimming and sailing. The area is popular with cyclists and has easy access to the North York Moors.
Scarborough Video - A Place to Work, Live and Invest
Yorkshire Coast
The Yorkshire Coast is a world-famous stretch of coastline that runs from the Tees estuary to the Humber estuary on the east coast of England. The coastline between the two estuaries was historically made up of the East and North Ridings of Yorkshire. Since the 1974 county boundary shake-up, this now comprises Redcar & Cleveland, North Yorkshire and the East Riding of Yorkshire.
The North York Moors National Park extends up to the coastline and traverses 26 miles (42 km) of the coast between Boulby and Cloughton, taking in the historic fishing villages of Staithes, Runswick Bay and Robin Hood's Bay.
The section of coastline south of Bridlington to Spurn Head is known as the Holderness coast from the area of East Yorkshire that the coastline adjoins.
North Yorkshire
North Yorkshire is England's largest county and one of the most rural. The area comprises the Yorkshire Dales and North York Moors, three Areas of Outstanding Natural Beauty and a stunning coastline around Scarborough and Whitby. There are ruined castles and abbeys, serene gardens, unique breweries, thrilling rides and industrial heritage. The area hosted the phenomenal Tour de France ‘Grand Depart’ in 2014 and has since created the Tour de Yorkshire, an annual event with global recognition. Our success in supporting these events led to Harrogate hosting the UCI Cycling World Championships in 2019.
North Yorkshire has plenty to offer the outdoor enthusiast. From the hard gritstone of Almscliff and Brimham rocks to the limestone of Malham, Gordale and Kilnsey climbing venues are in abundance. The Yorkshire Dales is the premier area for caving and for mountain biking; there are the bridleways of the Dales and North York Moors as well as the renowned trail centre at Dalby Forest. There are a small number of sailing clubs on reservoirs around the county and fantastic surfsport venues and sea kayaking on the east coast.
While the county is rightly known for its wide open spaces, it also incorporates attractive market towns including Pickering and Helmsley, traditional seaside towns, the Spa town of Harrogate and the ancient city of York - the most visited city outside of London. There are a wide range of shopping, leisure and cultural facilities as well as excellent schools, universities, road and rail links, there really is everything to offer you and your family as a place to work, live and enjoy!
Travelling further afield we have convenient connectivity, with close proximity to metropolitan cities of Leeds and Newcastle and with a little over two hours commute on the main train line to London. We border the Lake District, Lancashire, County Durham, and Yorkshire & Humber regions with all they have to offer.
The Role
Cayton School, North Yorkshire
Post: Headteacher
Number on Roll: 200
Commencing: September 2021
Contract Type: Full Time
Salary: L12 – L18 (Relocation package of up to £8,000 available)
Contract Term: Permanent
Cayton is a happy, caring and supportive school, it has been for many years, it is an important strength of the school and we are looking for a new Headteacher to develop on this. We deliver the highest educational standards enabling children and adults to grow, learn and work together in a caring atmosphere where laughter, respect, trust and harmony are highly valued.
The school has a warm and welcoming family atmosphere where we place a great emphasis on working in partnership with parents/carers, children, governors and the communities that we serve. Cayton is situated on the outskirts of the beautiful seaside resort of Scarborough, on the East Coast of Yorkshire. The school has close contacts with the local communities and benefits from support from the parish council and North Yorkshire County Council.
Our Opportunity
This is an excellent opportunity for a leader to lead, shape and further develop our wonderful school. You will be working alongside a committed team of staff and a Governing Body that is ambitious and has high aspirations for all children and staff. You will need to adopt a ‘Whole School’ approach when setting out your plans for the school and have the aspiration, resilience and the ability to build positive and trusting relationships and build on a culture of learning and ambition that will see our children develop, grow and contribute an active part in today’s society.
The Governors are looking for a Headteacher with a passion for promoting excellence in teaching and learning and a strong focus on children achievement and development as well as the ability to deliver positive outcomes for all children, regardless of background or ability.
While we have many strengths (Ofsted and encouraging outcomes for example), we know that we need to continue to build a love of reading across school, maintain and build on the quality of teaching and our expectations on what our children are capable of and further develop our senior leaders to ensure subject leaders have the skills and knowledge they need to influence the quality of education in their subject area.
About You
- An excellent communicator and team builder
- Proven ability to manage change
- Able to form professional relationships
- Strong problem solving skills
- Ability to maximise pupil numbers
- Friendly and outgoing
You may be looking at this opportunity as either your next Headship or your first. Regardless of where you are in your leadership career, we will ensure you have the access to the cohesive support provided by the Local Authority, Governors and the DFE North Yorkshire Coast Opportunity Area (OA) as you thrive and succeed as our new Headteacher.
We can offer you:
- A happy, caring and supportive school, with delightful children who respect each other and have a thirst for learning.
- A culture which allows all staff to thrive and develop.
- An opportunity to see the huge potential that exists and the time to make Cayton School a beacon of excellence in primary education.
- Support from the Local Authority, Governing Body and a staff team who are experienced, committed and passionate about our school.
- A Governing Body committed to providing support on all matters including more sensitive or difficult issues and including the wellbeing of all staff members.
- An ambitious curriculum which aims to give every child a love for learning and enriching opportunities.
- A recent inspection has taken place under the new inspection framework and that there are opportunities for the new Headteacher to develop reading and curriculum leadership.
- Relocation assistance and competitive remuneration package through the OA
If you feel ready to be our next Headteacher and you can bring your commitment, energy and passion to deliver our vision for the children, staff and communities we serve, we would love to hear from you! Please apply below.
For an informal, confidential conversation about the role please call Julie Crichton on 07581143421 or email julie.crichton@northyorks.gov.uk. Julie has been engaged to support us with recruitment to this key role.
Key dates:
- Application closing date: Midnight, Sunday 7th February
- Shortlisting: Thursday 11th February
- Interviews: Tuesday the 2nd and Wednesday the 3rd of March
Supporting Documents
When applying please take into account the following:
Supporting Information
The supporting information section of your application should clearly evidence your ability to meet the requirements we have outlined in the person specification. This will be used to shortlist applicants for this role and therefore it is imperative that you provide evidence as requested.
References
When completing your application, please provide two employment references.
Safeguarding
Our school is committed to safeguarding and promoting the welfare of all children and expects all staff and volunteers to share this commitment. This post will be subject to undertaking an enhanced Disclosure and Barring Service check.