Headteacher- Filey School - The Resourcing Solution

Dear Applicant,

I am delighted you have shown interest in becoming the next Headteacher of Filey School. I hope the information provided helps you in your decision-making process.

Filey School is the only secondary school in the town of Filey on the Yorkshire Coast and serves a wide catchment area from Filey and the surrounding rural villages.

The school recently joined Coast and Vale Learning Trust and is now one of four secondary providers in the Trust, including Scalby School, Lady Lumley’s School and Scarborough UTC. The Trust also has two primaries, Newby and Scalby Primary and Friarage Community Primary, both of which are in Scarborough. As our name suggests we see our sphere of influence being the Yorkshire Coast and the Ryedale area and our mission is to build strong collaborative relationships with all schools in this area.

Our Trust vision is to create schools where learners and staff thrive. All of our strategies have the aim to bring rapid improvement of each of our schools to ensure that they are excellent learning communities that support their local area. Filey School is now ready to embrace this vision of improvement and to become the school of choice for its local community.

The new Headteacher will have support from an experienced Trust leadership team and our Central School Improvement Team. We are highly experienced school leaders who have affected change in complex situations and our Central Improvement Team are driving the school improvement agenda across many schools in our area.

I see this role is an exciting opportunity for a new Headteacher to join an ambitious and outward looking multi academy trust. We expect our Headteachers to be effective strategic thinkers who prioritise the improvement of teaching and learning in everything they do and you will be given the support and development to do this.

For an informal, confidential conversation about the role please contact Helen Poole on 07890 055186. Helen has been engaged by the Trust to support the appointment.

On behalf of the Coast and Vale Learning Trust and the Local Governing Committee we thank you for considering this exciting and challenging position.

Our Opportunity

This opportunity as Headteacher of Filey School promises to be an extremely rewarding headship; you will relish leading this well-loved school onto the next stage of its journey by developing and implementing effective strategies to raise standards and continually improve pupil attainment and progress. You will have a vision of excellence and collaborate with the Trust to lead staff and students alike. You must exhibit confidence, empathy and a clear focus on building a healthy workplace culture to benefit the wellbeing of the staff and our children and young people.

The new Headteacher will be committed and concentrating on:

The development of the senior leadership team in order to reinvigorate the school and improve learning outcomes for students.
Raising standards across the school in terms of academic performance, behaviour management and pastoral care so that all students have the opportunity to achieve to the very best of their ability.

Our new leader will:

Develop, inspire and motivate effective teams in order to raise standards and academic performance at Filey School.
Lead the school in the provision of excellent learning, teaching and assessment, ensuring that the National Standards for Teachers are applied and upheld.
Engage with the Governing Board and Trust in planning and implementing appropriate strategies to follow the agreed strategic direction of the school.
Ensure the financial viability of the school, by overseeing the deployment of the budgets, and devolving appropriate operational responsibility.
Manage the school’s assets and facilities, ensure they are safe and well-maintained and encourage their use in income generation.
Collaborate with the senior leaders to continually review practices, procedures and structures across the school.
Lead the development and alignment of the school’s internal and external information and communication systems.
Lead the internal and external collaborative development of exciting, appropriately resourced, curriculum that engage students and offer a wide variety of educational opportunities to meet their needs and aspirations.
Ensure that effective pastoral and student support systems are in place.
Ensure the wellbeing and effective work-life balance of staff within the school.
Engage Senior Leaders and the wider team in the development, implementation, monitoring and evaluation of the school’s Strategic Plan.
Lead the school through rigorous self-evaluation, including quality monitoring, assurance and improvement, and performance management at all levels, engaging teams and individuals in the process.
Engage staff in formulating a vision of educational excellence and support senior leaders in planning and working towards this.
Ensure accurate and timely reports are made to the Governing Body, with clarity about progress made, and recommendations for immediate and future priorities.
Adopt a style of leadership that engages and inspires staff, harnessing and developing talent and expertise amongst staff at all levels.
Recognise and understand the cumulative effects of significant change on staff motivation and engagement, and lead the change process to achieve stability and inspire confidence.
Create an excellent pastoral team
Develop internal and external communication systems; ensuring that staff, students and the wider community have a clear understanding of operational developments and the strategic direction of the school.
Be a seasoned and rigorous self-evaluator who ensures that there is effective monitoring of and considered change to operational and strategic plans.
Ensure that accurate information is passed to Governors in a clear manner that informs the decisions made regarding immediate and future priorities.

This is an excellent opportunity to provide strategic leadership and direction to ensure that there is a strong focus on high quality classroom practice and forging ever-closer relationships with parents, carers, and our highly supportive wider school community.

About Our School

Filey School is situated on the beautiful North Yorkshire Coast. Our school is a small three-form entry secondary school with approximately 420 students and is the only secondary school in the coastal town of Filey. Filey is located on the North Yorkshire Coast with excellent local amenities and connectivity. The economy is based on tourism and agriculture, however, there are no major industrial sites close by. An expansion of a housing development is directly across from the school promising an increase in pupil numbers. Click HERE to learn more about life on the Yorkshire Coast.

Filey School converted to an Academy and became the Ebor Filey Academy in 2015. This was on the back of successive Ofsted Reports that criticised the provision for children at the school. The school made progress towards and there was evidence of improvement in 2018 that moved the school to Requires Improvement, however further challenges have arisen in 2021 with the school returning to Inadequate status in December 2021.

Coast and Vale Learning Trust have been working with Filey School since January 2022 and are committed to returning Filey School to its proud heritage within the town.

Features and Benefits of our school:

Our Students

The vast majority of students identify as white British with small numbers of students from Asian backgrounds. Social mobility for some groups of students is limited by Filey’s coastal location.

The majority of students are friendly, well-behaved and always engage positively with teaching staff and visitors. However, there are a small number of disengaged students and who present challenging behaviours. The school and Trust have been keen to support these students and have accessed funding for alternative provision packages to re-engage these students in education. This has been positively received by the school community and supported by comments in feedback to SLT. There are further exciting plans for an alternative education provision to support students with additional needs.

Child wellbeing

Wellbeing will be a priority for the incoming Headteacher to build upon the work the interim Headteacher has started.

Relationships with parents, carers and the wider community

The community is heavily invested with parental support and desire for our school to achieve – many parents are ex-pupils. The trust is working hard to rebuild relationships to previous positive levels of engagement with the community, and this work has already made a positive impact. There is a strong governing body with parental representation and two supportive main primary partner schools of Hunmanby Primary School and Filey Junior School.

Our Team, the Governing Board & Support

Vision, Ethos, Values and Aims

Our School vision, ethos and values are at the heart of everything we do. They underpin our teaching and learning, and provide an environment which evokes in our students a love of learning and ensure they are happy, safe and have clear direction and support.

Our Ethos – We know people matter the most, and it is our job to create a climate and culture that enables everyone to feel happy and safe in an exciting place to learn. Self-belief, confidence and being proud of our own achievements are the keys to success.

Our Aims -

Believe in our students – the best academic outcomes always occur where a true partnership has been established between home, school and the young person – all of us working together to strive for the best possible education.
Provide all our learners with an exciting, coherent and inspirational curriculum taught by truly talented, professional and hardworking staff.

We wish to create a culture that is inclusive, and where the individual and diverse talents of all our students are nurtured and celebrated.
We want to encourage every member of our school community to develop a love of learning. 
To do all we can to enable everyone to reach the highest standards of which they are capable. We are committed to ensuring our students are happy, safe and have clear direction and support.

Our School’s current strengths:

Our school has a considerable amount of support from senior leadership within Coast and Vale Learning Trust, including NLE support from Scalby School. All stakeholders are committed to supporting the new Headteacher in their vision for the school.

There are effective safeguarding measures and robust training for staff in place which ensures students are kept safe.

Ofsted recognised – “During the period when schools were closed to most pupils, leaders ensured that systems were quickly set up to check on the well-being of pupils. This included visiting pupils’ homes where necessary.”

Current areas identified for improvement and considerations:

Senior Leaders from Coast and Vale Learning Trust are supporting our school to undertake a thorough self-evaluation process; this and the areas for improvement identified in the inspection report will inform the schools strategic objectives for 2022-2023 and beyond. This includes:

Senior leadership responsibilities aligned to improve teaching and learning.
Rapid improvement of the quality of middle leadership, quality of provision in Maths and Science, SEND, personal development of students, and progress and attainment of Year 11 students.
Reinvigoration of the building and grounds over the next 12-18 months as well as building an alternative provision.
Development of performance management strategies with a focus on incremental coaching, with weekly sessions and drop-ins for staff.
A refined awards system to really embrace student achievement.
Development of the Scarborough Teaching Alliance – a ready pool of newly qualified talent and access to quality NPQs for staff.

Are you an innovative and ambitious senior leader?

Are you looking for an exciting and rewarding opportunity to work with a team of exceptional educational professionals, and lead the newest addition to our Trust family?

Filey School is a friendly secondary school situated in the beautiful seaside resort of Filey on the Yorkshire coast. The school works closely with their community and their core values are demonstrated on a daily basis. Filey School is the latest addition to the Coast and Vale Learning Trust in Scarborough in June 2022.

Having faced some challenges in our recent history, our school has great ambition to provide outstanding learning outcomes, where each student is valued and motivated to strive for excellence. Coast and Vale Learning Trust has an excellent track record of raising educational standards across their schools and are excited to support the successful applicant in implementing their vision and strategies for improvement.

Our Opportunity

This is a rewarding Headship; you will lead our coastal school onto the next stage of our journey within our new Trust, and by incorporating a clear vision for the future development of our school, plan what that journey might look like. This is an excellent opportunity to provide strategic leadership and direction in a school with a supportive team of staff and a Trust history of robust leadership. We want our dynamic, energetic and driven Headteacher working towards all students achieving the best possible outcomes whilst maintaining the highest levels of staff and student wellbeing. You will not be joining a single school, rather a family of schools that can thrive together, share resources and help each other through difficult times. We believe in ‘servant leadership’ where the principles of service underpin all we do.

We can offer you:

Significant levels of support from Coast and Vale Learning Trust, through our Central Improvement Team, who are relentless in their work to improve and transform our schools.
A school improvement partnership model which will allow you to thrive within our Trust as Headteacher.
As well as being committed to your ongoing development and training we also offer a range of employee benefits including a competitive salary, access to the Teachers Pension scheme, an employee assistance programme as well as a variety of retail discounts.
Relocation assistance and competitive remuneration package of up to £8,000.

About You

The successful applicant must be able to demonstrate a proven record of success working with secondary age children, have recent school leadership experience, either as an existing Headteacher or Deputy Head and be committed to providing the children with a high-quality education and environment. Experience working with challenging behaviour is advantageous.

You will:

Be a committed leader with excellent interpersonal skills who can motivate and manage all stakeholders, effectively shaping and delivering the strategic plan.
Demonstrate superb leadership skills with ability to challenge robustly and constructively.
Be someone who recognises the importance of maintaining the school’s existing values while instilling their own leadership and identity.
Be an outstanding teaching practitioner able to set and achieve ambitious goals and continually seek to raise standards and promote our vision, values and aims in a way that is relevant and inspiring to all.
Be able to provide excellent and robust staff management.
Have progressive IT skills and a deep understanding of the significance and importance of consistent data monitoring.
Consider and shape how we can adapt our practices innovatively to promote and enhance the wellbeing of our staff team.
Demonstrate an understanding of the needs of young people, social, physical and emotional alongside educational needs, and ensure that the school provides a rounded provision to nurture them.
Show practical knowledge and experience in raising standards.
Be a strategic thinker able to plan long, medium and short term.
Be able to review our financial resources and look at how we invest in our school.
Have a continuing drive to reflect, learn and strive for positive development, for themselves, their staff team, the children and our school as a whole.
Be someone who is capable of and confident in making difficult decisions and ask challenging questions in order to seek the best possible outcome for our school as a whole.

For an informal confidential conversation about the role please contact Helen Poole on 07890 055186.

Visits to the school are invited and encouraged; to arrange a school visit by appointment please contact Helen Poole.

Please contact us if you need an application form in a different format.

Key dates:

Closing Date: Midday, Friday 9^th September 2022

Shortlisting: Monday 12^th September 2022

Interviews: Thursday 22nd and Friday 23rd September 2022

Supporting Documents:

CVLT Application Form

When applying please take into account the following:

Job Description
Person Specification

The supporting information section of your application should clearly evidence your ability to meet the requirements we have outlined in the person specification (see campaign site). This will be used to shortlist applicants for this role and therefore it is imperative that you provide evidence as requested.

Coast and Vale Learning Trust wish to place a special emphasis on the importance of the following Key Competencies:

When completing your application, please provide two employment references, one of which must be your most recent employer.

We are committed to safeguarding and protecting the children and young people we work with and expect all our staff and volunteers to share this commitment. As such, all posts are subject to safer recruitment process, including an enhanced DBS check. We have a range of policies in place which promote safeguarding and safer working practice across our Schools.

We are an equal opportunities employer and welcome applications from all sections of the community regardless of age, gender, race, ethnicity, disability, sexual orientation, social background, religion or belief. We want to recruit the right people for the Trust, from the widest possible backgrounds, to make the most of each individual’s different knowledge and experience.

Your privacy is important to us. By submitting your personal data or information to us, you agree this will be handled in accordance with the Trust’s Privacy Policy.

Headteacher-Filey School

Filey, North Yorkshire

Headteacher, Filey School

Kindness, Respect, Integrity, Teamwork

Welcome, and thank you for your interest in our Headteacher opportunity

Learn more about our Headteacher Filey School opportunity