Principal of Holland Park School - Kensington, United Kingdom - United Learning

United Learning

Verified Company

Kensington, United Kingdom

2 weeks ago

Posted by:

Tom O´Connor

beBee Recruiter

Description

Thank you very much for your interest in becoming Principal of Holland Park School, one of the best-known state schools in the country.

From its foundation by the London County Council in 1958, it has been a symbol - sometimes positive, sometimes negative - of changing times in education.

The 'socialist Eton' moniker was only ever the result of it being the school to which a couple of Labour cabinet ministers sent their children but it was nonetheless one of the wave of comprehensive schools founded as the selective system was phased out of inner London entirely.

Through transfer to the Greater London Council, Inner London Education Authority and then the borough council, establishment as a single academy trust and now as part of a group of academies, changes in legal status have been matched by changes of educational philosophy and practice.

The school embraced the educational fashions of the 1970s onwards in the name of inclusion and was increasingly criticised for its academic standards, most seriously in the 1990s.

The first two decades of this century have seen the school re-embrace traditional academic values but become increasingly criticised for its lack of inclusion - most seriously and publicly by groups of staff and pupils from the summer of 2021 onwards.

The goal now is simply that the school should be truly excellent and truly inclusive, serving with integrity the poor and the dispossessed to the same standard as the wealthiest, most demanding and most articulate - perhaps for the first time living up to the best of its founding ideals.

Under the exceptional leadership of Dame Sally Coates in recent months it has begun that journey, recovering from the turbulence which began with the calling out of the cultural problems in the school in the summer of 2021, the government interventions, special measures judgement, changes of Head, and the campaigns and publicity through the process of joining United Learning.

Today, you will find a stable, well-functioning school, which has introduced our systems and routines, improving quickly but far from the finished article.

It is popular and over-subscribed; and in a part of town which exemplifies to an extreme extent the London phenomenon of great wealth and great poverty living cheek by jowl, it genuinely attracts from the most affluent parts of the borough and from the least.

It has strong results, an ambitious co-curricular programme including strengths in music and the arts and a truly extraordinary building.

I doubt that there is a school in the country with more potential.

For the right leader, taking this school to the peaks of success of which it is capable is the career-defining opportunity of a lifetime - you have the chance to make a lasting and transformational difference to the life chances of thousands of young people and to leave the legacy of a school which is a beacon of excellence and an exemplar of what is possible.

The challenge is significant, though, because this is not an easy school to run:

you will need the highest expectations for all children, academically, behaviourally and in other ways, great skill in building teams and securing buy-in from the unusually diverse and demanding communities of the school, confidence, integrity and compassion.

You will have the support of a large Group which has all the capabilities and capacity you need and which provides expertise and practical assistance across all the educational and operational aspects of running an excellent school.

At the same time, we are values-led and base all that we do on good relationships, so you will be supported personally as well as professionally, and benefit from the strength of a national Group to support your development and that of your staff and school.

We are open to discussing flexible working options and always appoint on merit.

We are committed to fairness, diversity and inclusion.

We are currently working hard to improve the representation of black, Asian and minority ethnic leaders at headship level and to raise our proportion of women leaders to match their representation in our wider workforce.

Whoever you are, if you have a strong track record of improving young people's education and feel excited to take on a school with exceptional potential, we very much look forward to hearing from you.

Holland Park School is a vibrant, diverse, and inspiring school boasting spectacular state of the art facilities in a stylish modern building and is situated in the heart of London in the Royal Borough of Kensington and Chelsea.

The school has around 1,300 students on-roll including a 6th Form of around 200 and serves the local community in what is a truly comprehensive setting.

Our classrooms are all fitted with state-of-the-art equipment and the school also benefits from its own fitness suite and swimming pool which are accessible to staff out of regular school hours.

We are highly aspirational for our students and the school achieves outcomes a