Thank you for taking an interest in this role.

We are excited to recruit an HLTA to support PPA and intervention provision for our school. This is an exciting opportunity for an outstanding candidate who is highly motivated to work with children in KS2.

The ideal candidate will have the skills, experience and knowledge to provide teaching and learning support to classteachers as part of our temporary structure to raise standards quickly, through targeted interventions for all. We are looking for someone with enthusiasm for all aspects of school life. In return we offer you the opportunity to contribute to the future of Westminster and to make learning enjoyable for our children.

Westminster is almost twice as large as an average primary school and, as a result of unplanned mass mobility into the area, our numbers on roll are stable and most classes are full. This unplanned mass mobility of children who are new to the country, community and school now makes up a large proportion of the school. Over the last 2 years, not including normal Nursery/Reception admissions, we have welcomed 125 new children into school (around 25% of NOR) and 68 children have moved on to other schools or moved to another country.

Significant numbers of our new children are asylum seekers and refugees and experienced severe trauma on their journey to our country, community and school. We know a number of our children have 3 or more ACEs through our Safeguarding and Inclusion work and recognise that there will be many more where we have not had notification or provide intervention.

We serve an area of extremely high socio-economic deprivation, where experience of, and aspiration to, education success has been historically and significantly low – IMD & LSOA data confirms the children live in an area that is identified as being in the most deprived 5% of the country and has become more deprived since 2015. Our constituency, Bradford East, has the highest rate of unemployment in Bradford, the lowest life expectancy and highest infant mortality rates. Crime figures show that we are in the 2% most affected areas in the country. 14% classed as obese on entry into Reception and 30% of Y6 children are classed as obese. Both these figures are higher than the national and Bradford averages and are despite our priority on physical activity in PE and healthy eating in DT.

Our local community was even more adversely affected by the COVID pandemic due to its existing difficulties and is still recovering from the impact. Our community outreach work is growing; we support around 100 families in many ways including debt counselling; food bank supporting at least 30 families per week (this has doubled since 2021-22); access to benefits advisor; supporting families fleeing domestic violence; providing clothing and essential household items; support for applying to secondary schools and basic language & number skills training for parents and carers all in addition to the ongoing academic communication.

Our school is improving in every way, thanks to the dedication of our staff and the support of our parents. Our proactive work to ensure that our curriculum and approaches meet the needs of all children, including the large proportion who are new to the country, community & school, has been recognised by Ofsted and our Trust. This HLTA role is pivotal to our work to further improve our end of KS2 outcomes.