JOIN OUR MISSION TO BECOME ONE OF THE BEST SCHOOLS IN THE COUNTRY!

Salary: £77,185 - £85,128 p/a

Reports To: Principal

Start Date: September 2025

Contract: Permanent

Location: St. Neots, Cambridgeshire

About the Role:

We are building a team of exceptional and highly skilled leaders, committed to driving excellence and improvement in our school. If you have a deep passion for curriculum, teaching and assessment, and a proven track record of delivering impact and excellent outcomes, this could be the role for you.

As the Vice Principal: Curriculum and Quality of Education, you will have autonomy and work extremely closely with the principal to shape the future direction of the school. You will raise standards and attainment across the school, ensuring excellence in every classroom. You will play a visible role in all areas of school improvement to drive academic outcomes and foster a scholarly culture, and be respected by staff as someone who upholds the highest of standards and works hard.

Key Responsibilities:

• Boss the school and the corridors. Have a mindset of constant and continual improvement. Dismantle and rebuild things that don't work or need improving.
• Lead constant and continual improvement in the quality of education in the school. This includes curriculum, teaching and learning, assessment, timetabling, raising achievement, staff development, general standards and academic rigour etc., either directly or indirectly through line management.
• Drive continual improvements in curriculum middle leadership, as the engine room of the school, to centrally raise academic standards.
• Have a laser focus on securing excellent academic outcomes for children, ensuring their results allow them to dictate the future direction of their lives.
• Model and upholding the highest of standards and ensure others are accountable for maintaining culture, systems, routines, and standards. Robustly tackle underperformance wherever it is identified.
• Spearhead and continue to develop the culture around academic rigour and hard work.
• Line manage senior leaders and key subject areas and develop expertise within the team, especially with regards to skilful and precise enactment of the curriculum
• Be a big voice in driving strategic improvements and develop strategic priorities and plans.
• Use evidence to precisely monitor, diagnose, and evaluate the school. Use this to drive improvement.
• Be an excellent practitioner in the classroom - an example to which others aspire.

Why Join Us?

This is a fantastic time to join TEAM ERNULF on our turnaround journey. We are on a RAPID MISSION to turn our school into one of the BEST in the country! When the current leadership took over, in September 2024, Ernulf had NEVER received an Ofsted 'Good' in ANY category. In January 2025, after just one term, Ofsted rated us 'Good' in ALL categories. If our rapid improvement and ambition EXCITE you, then join us to disrupt disadvantage by transforming the education of our pupils. We are within an hour's commute of North London, Norfolk, Grantham and Rugby.

We belieive in keeping things simple. Our mantra is: WORK HARD, BE KIND. We don't just want children to attain incredible academic outcomes; we also want to help them become great people.

WORK HARD

Team Ernulf don't believe in fads. We know the biggest factor in a child's achievement is how hard they work. That is why we have sky high expectations. We have simple rules, centralised detentions, and we back our teachers - so that our classrooms are disruption-free. We do this to support our children who want to work hard and do well.

A knowledge-rich curriculum, built on ‘powerful knowledge’, underpins our teaching and learning principles. We offer a traditional approach to teaching, following evidence-based research by Rosenshine. Our pedagogy is influenced by Teach Like A Champion (TLAC). Stimulating lessons are delivered by teachers, who we back as the expert in the room.

BE KIND

Team Ernulf is WWF: warm, welcoming, and friendly. We pride ourselves on having a family atmosphere. We teach our pupils empathy and respect and have zero tolerance to bullying. A scholarly approach is at our core, but teaching pupils to be polite, considerate, and caring is just as important.

Our world-class enrichment programme takes learning beyond the classroom. In Autumn term 2024 alone, children visited Cambridge University, The British Museum, The National Gallery, RAF Hendon, Kenilworth Castle, and were on Channel 5 and BBC radio!! As well as this, every week KS3 children have the opportunity to take part in electives such as British sign language, clubbercise, building a robotic arm, chess, girls cricket, and many more!

What We Offer:

• A knowledge-rich curriculum, built on ‘powerful knowledge’ and a traditional teaching and learning approach inspired by Rosenshine and TLAC.
• Collaborative planning with centralised, shared units of work and resources.
• Disruption-free learning and a warm/strict behaviour system, including centralised detentions. We back our teachers!
• Pay above the national scales!
• 8 INSET days per year!
• Whole-class feedback over marking to reduce workload and increase impact!

Benefits:

• Health Support: Access to AXA’s 24/7 health support line for medical advice.
• Cycle to Work Scheme: Salary sacrifice deduction for bicycles and cycling accessories.
• Discounts and Savings: Access to the Blue Light Card and Costco membership.
• Enhanced Family Leave: Paid leave to support our people when they need it the most.
• Optical Care: Financial contribution to optical care for habitual DSE users.
• Life Assurance: Peace of mind for our people and their families.
• Employee Support: Access to our Employee Assistance Programme.
• Discounted Gym Membership: Available at The Gym Group with 245 locations nationwide.
• Pension Scheme: Access to the Teachers’ Pension Scheme.
• Professional Development: Continued professional development and training opportunities.
• Convenience: Free on-site parking.

Interested in Applying?

If you are passionate about education, looking for a fresh opportunity, or simply want to make a positive impact, we would love to hear from you. Take a look at the job description and candidate pack to find out more about the role and how to apply. If you want to discuss this role in greater detail or visit the school please get in touch with Sarah McCormick - sarah.mccormick@astreaernulf.org

We reserve the right to close this position early if we receive a high volume of candidates, so do not delay, apply today.

Commitment to Safeguarding and EDI:

Ernulf Academy is committed to safeguarding and promoting the welfare of children and young people. All posts are subject to satisfactory background checks, including references and enhanced DBS checks. We value diversity and encourage applications from candidates.