Head of Department for MFL - Don Valley Academy

Delta Academies Trust; Doncaster; On-site; GBP 40,000 - 50,000; Full time

Job summary

An educational institution in Doncaster seeks a Head of Department for MFL to oversee teaching French and Spanish. You'll lead a high-performing team, developing a curriculum that engages students and ensures high achievement. This full-time, permanent position is available from January 2026, with a focus on excellence in language education.

Qualifications

• Experience teaching French and Spanish at KS3 and KS4.
• Ability to lead a department and mentor staff.
• Strong knowledge of modern foreign languages pedagogy.

Responsibilities

• Lead the MFL department and supervise other teachers.
• Develop and enhance the MFL curriculum.
• Ensure high student achievement and engagement in language learning.

Skills

Teaching French

Teaching Spanish

Leadership in education

Curriculum development

Education

Qualified Teacher Status (QTS)

Degree in Modern Languages or Education

Job description

Overview

Don Valley Academy are looking to appoint a Head of Department for MFL to join our academy in January 2026 or sooner if possible, on a full time, permanent basis.

As our new Head of MFL at Don Valley Academy, you’ll teach French & Spanish to KS3, and either French or Spanish to KS4, and you’ll lead a department of 3 other MFL teachers. At present, the department currently teaches 4 GCSE MFL classes (2 in French, 2 in Spanish) in both Year 10 and Year 11.

We are a high performing department, achieving results that are significantly higher than the national average. In 2024, both French and Spanish achieved more than 90% of students achieving a grade of 4 or higher. Our department has also successfully applied to the British Council’s MFL scheme, so we will be hosting another languages assistant in the coming academic year.

Our Vision

At Delta Academies Trust we understand the importance of learning a modern foreign language and we believe that every single one of our pupils should have that opportunity. We have invested significant time, expertise, and money in the creation of an outstanding curriculum offer which has increased pupil engagement, and as a result the number of pupils studying MFL in our 17 secondary academies has risen dramatically.

Our Curriculum

We have created carefully sequenced five-year curriculum plans for both French and Spanish using the national curriculum and the key recommendations of the 2016 MFL Pedagogy Review, and we regularly update them. Each one is fully resourced, with detailed lessons prepared for you to adapt to the needs of your classes. We use an online coursebook to underpin our teaching, along with our trust knowledge organisers. Every unit of work includes a cultural topic to help instil a love of languages as well as promote a desire to get to know more about people from those countries. We subscribe to an on-line learning platform to support the learning of vocabulary. Perhaps our biggest and most impressive investment is in our team of modern language assistants. We currently have 17 native speakers in our academies and our pupils love working with them!