St. Katherines School

Headteacher

Candidate Application Pack

January 2012

Headteacher

Application Pack

Contents List:

Letter from Mr Barry Toogood, Chair of Governors.

Copy of Advertisement

Information on St Katherines for candidates with links to website

Senior Leadership Team and Management Structure

Timeline for candidates

Person Specification

Job Description

How to apply

St. Katherines is committed to safeguarding and promoting the welfare of children and young

people and expects all staff and volunteers to share this commitment. Enhanced CRB check

will be required for the successful candidate.

Letter from Barry Toogood, Chair of Governors

January 2012

Dear Potential Applicant

Appointment of Headteacher of St Katherines School

Thank you for your interest in the post of Headteacher of St Katherines School. This vacancy

arises because our Headteacher, Stephanie Quayle, is moving to Qatar with her husband who

has been appointed Headmaster of Al Khor International School. This is a wonderful

opportunity for them and we wish them every happiness and great success for the future.

The Governors are seeking a successor who will build on the achievements of Stephanie and

her team and who has the vision and skills to lead our school into the next phase of its

development.

St Katherines is a medium sized 11-19 mixed comprehensive school. We are situated on the

edge of Bristol in a beautiful rural environment and we enjoy excellent transport links, being

just off one of the main routes to Bristol and close to the M5. Although we are a North

Somerset Local Authority School, the vast majority of our students live in the neighbouring

authority of Bristol and travel out of the city each day to enjoy an excellent standard of

education and the vast wealth of opportunities that St Katherines has to offer. We have a

very well developed outreach programme in place with the primary schools in North Somerset

and in Bristol.

The students, staff, parents and governors are very proud of our school and its

achievements. We have been a Science College since 2003 and were delighted to graduate

as a High Performing Specialist School with a focus on Applied Learning in 2009. Standards

at St Katherines are consistently high and for the past four consecutive years our Year 11

students have been ranked first in North Somerset for pupil progress from Key Stage 2 to Key

Stage 4. We routinely meet or exceed our FFTD targets at both school and individual student

level.

As well as being a High Performing Specialist School and Science College, some of our other

notable achievements include being a national lead school for Gifted and Talented, being the

first secondary school in the country to receive the Food for Life Gold Award and most

recently achieving the School Gold Travel Plan award. We have a beautiful school site and a

well maintained learning environment which has been developed significantly in the last few

years. Our specialist accommodation is excellent and some of our recent developments

include a new 2.8M world class Hospitality facility (which won LABC West of England best

education facility), refurbished English facilities including a new purpose built Apple Mac suite,

well maintained and looked after general teaching facilities and extensive beautiful school

grounds. Our 5M annual school budget is extremely well managed and we expect to carry

forward 200K in to the new financial year. Our greatest assets however are the students

and staff of St Katherines. Ofsted in May 2011 described St Katherines as a good school

that provides a good quality of education with outstanding provision for students care,

guidance and support. The school community is extremely harmonious and students were

keen to let inspectors know how they enjoy school as well as saying they feel safe and well

cared for. Links with parents and carers are fostered extremely well and they are highly

supportive.

This is an exciting time for an applicant with a passion for making St Katherines School the

best place for young people to learn and grow up.

To support you, we can offer you a strong Senior Leadership Team, hardworking, talented

and enthusiastic staff, a dedicated, effective governing body, confident, articulate, thoughtful,

creative and aspirational students with supportive parents.

We hope you will find the information pack for candidates useful. There is plenty of additional

information on our school website. Applicants should complete the enclosed application form

(there is an electronic version online) and send a supporting letter (no more than two sides of

A4 please) highlighting the skills and qualities you feel you would bring to the post. Please

address the key points in our person specification in your letter of application.

We look forward to receiving your application, and should you wish to visit the school prior to

submitting your application, please contact Mrs Moller, the Headteachers PA, for an

appointment.

Yours sincerely

B Toogood

Barry Toogood

Chair of Board of Governors

Closing date: Monday, 20 February 2012, 12 noon

Short listing:Short listing will take place during the week commencing 20 February 2012.

Candidates will be invited to interview by telephone and e-mail.

Confirmation of the interview programme will be sent on 28/29 February 2012

Interviews: Monday 12 March, Tuesday 13 March, Wednesday 14 March

Copy of Advertisement

Information for candidates with links to the website

We would encourage all candidates to visit our school website at www.st-katherines.n-

somerset.sch.uk where there are over 200 pages of information. We have selected a few

key pages under each heading which we hope will be of interest to you.

Home

There is an electronic version of our Prospectus on this page, as well as all the latest news

and updates, our school blog and ParentPay can also be accessed from this page

About Us

This section gives you a broad overview of our school including Our Aims and Values,

Whos Who, details about our Ofsted Report from May 2011, last summers excellent GCSE

and A Level Results and some of our accreditations such as Lead School for Gifted and

Talented and Food for Life Gold Award. Parents also use this page to access School Events

and Newsletters.

Parents

The Parents section gives all the information parents need in relation to their childs

learning and well-being whilst at school including SEN. There is also practical information

about making payments, attendance and specific Year Group information.

Students

The Students section is well visited and is full of information, videos, and podcasts created

by the students, as well as other information providing details about health, homework

extracurricular activities and examinations. Students also use this section to access the

VLE and student emails.

Curriculum

The Curriculum section gives details of all our KS3 and KS4 curriculum opportunities by

subject.

Sixth Form

The Sixth Form section is the largest section with all the information required about

joining, studying and life in the Sixth Form. There is a separate Sixth Form Prospectus.

There are full details of all the courses and opportunities available detailed in the online

Coursebook.

Contact Us and Community

These sections have details about directions, lettings and our Outreach Programme.

Senior Leadership Team/Management Structure

Stephanie Quayle, Headteacher

Deputy Headteacher

Assistant Headteachers

Business Manager

Headteachers PA/Operations Manager

Steve Welsh, Deputy Headteacher Head of English Head of Humanities

Head of Maths Head of Science

Justin Humphreys, Assistant Headteacher Head of Year 11 and Sixth Form

Head of Design, Art and Technology Head of ICT and Business

Systems Manager

Mark Kennedy, Assistant Headteacher Head of Years 7 and 8 Human Resources Manager (jointly with Business Manager)

Head of Performing Arts Librarian

Joseph Mulligan, Assistant Headteacher AST for G+T

Head of International Communications Faculty Head of PSHE/Work Related Learning and Enterprise Education

Head of Year 9

Hayden Southon, Assistant Headteacher

Head of Year 10 Head of PE

SEN Teacher Inclusion & Achievement Team Student & Family Support Team

Connexions Parent Support Advisors

Nigel Cutland, Business Manager Support Staff

Appointment of Headteacher

Timeline for Candidates

Dates

Activity

30 January 2012 20

February 2012

Advertisement appears in press and Vacancy

Bulletin

13 17 February 2012

School Break

20 February 2012

Closing date for advertisement

21 24 February 2012

Short listing takes place.

28/29 February 2012

Shortlisted candidates invited for interview

12, 13 and 14 March

2012

Interviews take place

14 March 2012

Decision ratified by FGB and post offered

1 September 2012

New Headteacher starts