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I would like to welcome you to Falinge Park and for your interest in this post, which was a new post from September 2022 as part of an internal restructure. We did not recruit to this role immediately as we wanted to wait until the Spring term to find the right person.

We have a strong track record of effective literacy provision, which was a central tenet of our practice when I arrived at the school in 2015. A key influence was the work of Isabel Beck and ‘Bringing Words to Life.’ We implemented as much evidence based practice as was available at the time, the majority of which is now part of the EEF guide. It was initially overseen by a colleague who was promoted to Assistant Head and is now Associate Deputy Headteacher. We are at a position now where we are pleased to recruit for this role, subject lead for literacy reporting directly to the AHT (Associate Headteacher) and leading a team of 4 x literacy TA4 and a librarian. It requires the co-ordination of the literacy programme across Year 7-11, the i-college literacy work, which is now in its third year, the development of Tier 2 vocabulary whole school and Falinge reads.

There has been a specific impact of the pandemic on our school and we were possibly impacted due to the disproportionate impact on the communities we serve. We are back on our feet now after a difficult year last year, which you will identify through the GCSE outcomes – for example, we are currently seeing our attendance above FFT National Average and disadvantaged pupil’s attendance is 4% higher than those nationally. It is a tough job but made easier through our policies and practice and open, honest and transparent culture. Literacy remains a challenge but the local authority has invested in an inclusive programme with Right to Succeed to improve literacy outcomes across Rochdale. It follows evidence-based improvements in opportunity areas such as Blackpool and it is supported by Manchester Research School.

Why Falinge?

Our objective is simple at Falinge: to create a compelling learning experience. We do this by believing in people and positive relationships. This underpins our actions with each other and with the children. We have only one non-negotiable in school and that is our commitment to Safeguarding.

If you visit the school, I would hope you would notice the warm, welcoming environment; the excellent behaviour of the children; strong staff morale; a commitment to professional development of all staff; and a strong sense that this is a place where learning is valued. It is a place where calculated risks can be taken in a supportive environment and where we operate through a positive culture rather than a criticising, deficit model.

Our values are writ large: securing equity; strengthening communication; building communities; celebrating diversity. Our big aims of the curriculum and the learning behaviours we hope to instil in our pupils are: show kindness; show empathy; be curious; be responsible; take positive action.

We have developed our community wing of the school and are working closely with our charitable and voluntary organisations on social action and social justice projects. We believe in the beauty of civil society: of schools and community partners working together, ultimately benefiting the wellbeing and agency of communities. We would expect the successful applicant to be part of this approach.

We do work hard at the school but wellbeing and sensible policymaking is at the heart of our practice. We do not have a culture of “meeting for meeting’s sake” or a tick-box approach to school improvement. We are sensible with workload and expectations and are not afraid to stop if what we are doing isn’t having an impact on compelling learning.

As with any organisation, we don’t get it right all of the time – but we make sure that we work in a non-judgemental environment and we focus our actions have to be for the benefit of the children.

Next steps?

If you are interested in applying, please look at the person specification, our website and familiarise yourself with what we are about. If you would like to visit the school, please contact my PA Lisa Fitton on [email protected] to arrange a visit and we will make sure we accommodate you. If you want to have a conversation prior to applying then please contact me via Lisa Fitton. When writing your application, I am interested in understanding why you want to work at our school as well as gathering information about your skills, knowledge, leadership and vision for this role.