About Us

Harris City Academy Crystal Palace is a mixed Academy for 1,300 students aged 11-18, with a large sixth form of nearly 400 students.

The Academy has three consecutive Outstanding judgments by Ofsted, with the most recent inspection in 2014 finding the Academy to be Outstanding in every aspect. We are a consistently high performing school. Our motto, ‘All Can Achieve’ encapsulates our vision that all members of the Academy community are supported and encouraged to achieve their absolute potential. We believe that a well-supported and valued staff body is the key to our success.

We are the ‘Teaching School Hub’ for Croydon and Sutton and we are able to offer all teachers an extensive programme of first class professional development. Harris City Academy Crystal Palace is part of the Harris Federation and this enables us to offer you a comprehensive induction programme and training and development opportunities to support your career development including Masters and other qualifications.

Main Areas of Responsibility

The purpose of your role will be:

• To be accountable for student progress and development in the subject area across KS3, KS4 and post 16, including meeting student achievement targets for subject areas which are agreed by the Principal and the Governing Body.
• To ensure high standards of teaching and learning across the subject area through continuously, developing and enhancing the quality of teaching and learning.
• To ensure the provision of an appropriately broad, balanced, relevant and differentiated curriculum for students in the subject area, in accordance with the academy aims and policies, as determined by the Principal and Governing Body.
• To ensure that all school policies and procedures are implemented and applied consistently by all staff in the subject area.
• To ensure agreed tutor programme is implemented and that tutors are effective in their role.
• To ensure effective behaviour for learning is evident throughout faculty
• To effectively and efficiently manage and deploy teaching/support staff, financial and physical resources across the subject area.
• To lead development for literacy, through the WORD strategy, within subject areas, to raise standards of Literacy across the Academy

Your main areas of responsibility will fall under the areas of:

• Operational and strategic planning (including rigorous self-evaluation and review of subject area performance, formulating the subject and faculty improvement plans, and leading the development of appropriate syllabuses, resources, schemes of work, marking policies, assessment and teaching strategies)
• Ensuring the delivery of an appropriate, comprehensive, high quality and cost effective curriculum and leading development of the subject and its delivery
• Staff development (including recruiting, building and managing an effective team of motivated staff)
• Student outcomes (including ensuring the effective operation of target setting, monitoring and evaluation systems and the input and maintenance of accurate student data)
• Pastoral system (including being a form tutor to a selected group of students)
• Teaching, including acting as an outstanding role model

Qualifications & Experience

We would like to hear from you if you:

• Hold QTS (or equivalent) and a good, relevant undergraduate degree.
• Are an excellent teacher with a minimum of two years’ teaching experience.
• Have proven success in raising achievement.
• Have experience of leading others, ensuring high quality performance.
• Have successful experience in implementation of monitoring, evaluation and review process to improve the quality of teaching and learning.
• Demonstrate a high level of ICT skills and experience of how new technologies can be used to raise achievement.
• Have recent experience of involvement in innovative curriculum development.
• Have experience of presenting to a wide audience including teachers, other managers, students and parents.
• Understand creative whole school strategies for improving literacy and numeracy and the importance of this in raising achievement.
• Have some successful experience of leading on cross subject initiatives that have contributed to raising achievement.
• Have experience of embedding innovative strategies for Assessment for Learning and Learning to Learn.
• Have recent and relevant experience of managing and implementing change successfully at subject leader level.
• Are willing to use coaching as a model for ensuring on-going professional development.

For a full job description and person specification, please download the Job Pack.

Professional Development & Benefits

Our people are at the heart of our success. We have developed a strong culture of collaboration and best practice, with professional development and career planning at its centre. We invest in our staff with support, coaching, mentoring, and a wide range of top-quality training programmes delivered at every level.

In addition to the opportunities for career development and progression, we also offer a competitive rewards and benefits package which includes our Harris Allowance for teachers on MPS/UPS, a Performance and Loyalty Bonus, Pension Scheme with generous employer contributions, a Wellbeing Cash Plan and many other benefits. Learn more about our benefits on our website.