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Teaching Vacancies; Alnwick; On-site; GBP 65,000 - 85,000; Full time

Benefits offered by this job

Senior Leadership Team influence

Professional development program

Whole-school CPD cycles

Shared teaching framework

Pele Trust leadership development

Community school culture

Job summary

Duchess's Community High School in Alnwick seeks an Assistant Headteacher for Teaching & Learning to drive excellence in pedagogy and staff development. Join a school with a strong focus on safeguarding, research-informed practice and structured professional growth within a collaborative framework.

The post highlights a Senior Leadership Team role with real influence on school-wide decisions, a robust CPD program, and a culture of continuous improvement.

Qualifications

• A highly effective classroom practitioner with a strong current teaching record, who intends to keep teaching.
• Successful leadership of teaching and learning or professional development beyond your own classroom.
• Experience of leading change that improved practice in other people's lessons.
• Experience of designing and delivering professional development for teachers.
• Experience of working with and developing middle leaders.
• A deep understanding of safeguarding practice and principles.
• Desirable: NPQ in leading teaching or senior leadership.

Responsibilities

• Provide strong leadership of teaching and learning across the school and support curriculum development.
• Lead and shape whole-school CPD, ensuring departments engage in the improvement cycles.
• Develop and mentor middle leaders to raise teaching quality without compromising staff autonomy.
• Translate research into practical classroom routines and monitor impact through evidence gathering.
• Balance the need for improvement with staff wellbeing and sustainable workload management.

Skills

Teaching leadership

PD design

Change leadership

Middle leaders development

Mentoring colleagues

Safeguarding expertise

Education

Qualified Teacher Status

Honours degree

CPD evidence

NPQ in leading teaching or senior leadership

Job description

Assistant Headteacher: Teaching & Learning

What skills and experience we're looking for

• A highly effective classroom practitioner with a strong current teaching record, who intends to keep teaching
• Successful leadership of teaching and learning or professional development beyond your own classroom
• Experience of leading change that improved practice in other people's lessons
• Experience of designing and delivering professional development for teachers
• Experience of working with and developing middle leaders
• The ability to develop colleagues without diminishing them
• The ability to gather and interpret evidence about classroom practice accurately, and to translate research into practical classroom routines
• A genuine appetite for improvement, in yourself and in others, and the patience to keep going when there are no quick wins
• The judgement to know when to hold a line and when to adapt, and the confidence to change what is not working once you understand it
• Qualified Teacher Status, a good honours degree and evidence of continuing professional development
• A deep understanding of safeguarding practice and principles
• Desirable: experience at senior leadership level in a secondary school; experience of ITT or ECT induction; experience of instructional coaching; an NPQ in leading teaching or senior leadership; familiarity with Making Every Lesson Count or a comparable framework

What the school offers its staff

• A key senior leadership post with genuine licence: a philosophy that is established but not sacred, and a Headteacher who will back you in changing what is not working
• A seat on the Senior Leadership Team with real influence on whole-school decisions, and a meaningful timetable so the role stays rooted in the classroom
• An established professional development structure to lead: whole-staff CPD every Tuesday morning, every department meeting given over to CPD, and a year organised into twelve three-week improvement cycles
• A shared teaching framework based on Making Every Lesson Count, with a common language that staff know and use
• A staff team with a real appetite to get better, and a calm school where teachers can teach
• A workload charter that is not decoration: three data drops a year, fully analysed for staff; directed time built with staff at the forefront; the building closes at 6pm; CPD that is relevant, never to tick a box; nothing done for Ofsted
• Pele Trust leadership development, National Professional Qualifications, peer reviews, networks and cross-trust placements
• A school with deep roots in its community, strong support from local families, and the coast and the Cheviots within half an hour
• A January 2027 start, deliberately mid-cycle, so you have two terms to understand the school before you own a full year of the programme

Further details about the role

• The Duchess's Community High School is an 11 to 18 secondary school in Alnwick, serving a catchment that stretches from the Northumberland coast to the edge of the national park. Around fifty buses bring students in each day from market towns, villages and remote rural communities
• Our students arrive from very different contexts and quickly become part of one school community with common expectations. They are known, challenged and supported to succeed
• The school has been open since 1808 and its purpose has not changed: to open doors through excellent teaching, rich opportunities and high expectations for every student
• Over the past three years the culture has changed. Removals from lessons have fallen by around 80 per cent and teachers here can teach without constant interruption. that came from the same expectations applied consistently, in every room, every day
• That work created the conditions. The role is about what we do with them. Teaching is strong in many classrooms and less consistent in others, and closing that gap is the heart of the job
• We see the ordinary lesson as the unit of improvement. We are interested in the typical lesson on a wet Thursday in February, not the showcase
• We look at lessons to find out what is happening, not to grade them. Teachers here should be able to be seen on an ordinary day without fear
• Our values are ambition, resilience, community, trust, integrity, care and optimism. We care personally and we challenge directly
• Families here choose this school, stay with it and expect a great deal of it. The relationships between school, families and local partners are a genuine strength
• We are part of Pele Trust, a family of fourteen primary and secondary schools across Northumberland and North Tyneside
• Prospective candidates are strongly encouraged to visit before applying. Visits include time in classrooms and time with teachers without a senior leader present. Contact Teresa Donaldson on [e-mail]
• Closing date midday on Monday 12 October 2026. Interviews Thursday 15 October. The post starts in January 2027

Commitment to safeguarding

Our organisation is committed to safeguarding and promoting the welfare of children, young people and vulnerable adults. We expect all staff, volunteers and trustees to share this commitment. Our recruitment process follows the keeping children safe in education guidance. Offers of employment may be subject to the following checks (where relevant): childcare disqualification Disclosure and Barring Service (DBS) medical online and social media prohibition from teaching right to work satisfactory references suitability to work with children You must tell us about any unspent conviction, cautions, reprimands or warnings under the Rehabilitation of Offenders Act 1974 (Exceptions) Order 1975.