November 2013
Dear Applicant
Thank you for expressing an interest in the post of Head of School at Dane Court Grammar
School. This letter should provide you with some information about what the school is like,
the context in which we are operating and a little about the role of Head of School and the
sort of person we are looking for. If you need more information, would like to talk to me
directly or visit the school before applying, please feel free to contact me. This is a hugely
important post for the school and so we are very keen to spend whatever time is necessary
in finding the right person.
Dane Court Grammar School is an 11-18 mixed selective school of about 1,200 students. It is
not an elitist grammar school – on the contrary, compared with most selective schools in
England, Dane Court seems more like a mixed comprehensive school. We have a superb
staff, with probably the strongest team of teachers that the school has ever had. Dane Court
is located in Broadstairs on the Isle of Thanet. Thanet consists of three towns, Broadstairs,
Margate and Ramsgate. We are surrounded by beautiful, clean beaches and the people of
Thanet claim that we have our own micro climate – not quite tropical, but not far off!
Housing is cheap and in many cases spectacular, with a large number of Victorian and
Regency properties that make us a frequent subject of TV programmes such as ‘Location
Location Location’.
However, although Broadstairs is relatively affluent, Thanet as a whole is not – indeed, the
area is very deprived, as is much of England’s coast. We have high unemployment, teenage
pregnancies, domestic violence and we have, unfortunately, developed a local industry in
fostering Looked After Children from London. For many of our students, this is not the
easiest of places to grow up and the aspirations of local people are very low indeed.
Whatever your view of selection might be, if the purpose of a grammar school is to provide
a route out of poverty and into the middle classes – then Dane Court certainly serves this
purpose. The vast majority of our Sixth Form students going on to university are the first in
their families to do so.
It was partly because of our socio economic context that Dane Court became an
International Baccalaureate World School five years ago. In my opinion, the IB provides the
best post 16 education on offer anywhere in the world. Students who take the IB find it
tough – it is academically demanding and requires considerable self discipline and
commitment. However, IB students are recognised across the whole world – and we want
our students to be able to compete as equals with anyone in the world, including from the
most privileged independent and selective schools in England. Initially we offered a choice
of either A levels or IB to our students. However, from September 2012, we have only
offered the IB and the International Baccalaureate Careers Related Certificate (IBCC). The
IBCC combines vocational study (typically a BTEC), with two or more IB subjects and a very
well thought out core. It brilliantly combines vocational with academic, answering the
criticisms of the Woolf Report – and I believe that it may become a key feature of the
English education system in the future. We are the hub school in an IB world pilot to
establish whether non IB World Schools can deliver an IB offer. We are, therefore, working
with ten other Kent schools, including King Ethelbert School, to deliver the IBCC. Dane Court
Grammar School is completely committed to the IB. I personally believe that it is the best
educational programme available in the world and that it is, therefore, the programme that
we must provide for our students. We are in the process of extending our commitment to IB
by introducing the Middle Years Programme into KS3.
We federated with King Ethelbert School four and a half years ago and both schools became
academies two and a half years ago. This means that we share a Governing Body and an
Executive Headteacher. At the time, King Ethelbert School was a high priority National
Challenge School, on 14% 5 x A*-C including Maths and English (albeit with outstanding
status from Ofsted). By the end of that academic year, the school had moved to 34% and in
2009 we were found to be outstanding again by Ofsted – even though the Ofsted
framework was designed to punish National Challenge schools. The school suffered badly as
a result of the English marking debacle in August 2012 and was punished by Ofsted in June
2013 with a 3. However, the school gained the best results ever this August, with 54% five
GCSEs with Maths and English – also the highest score of any non selective school in Thanet.
We feel vindicated – but still angry!
The two schools are five miles apart and so students do not ‘cross over’. However, Dane
Court Sixth Form students have supported students at King Ethelbert and the Maths and
English Departments work very closely with each other, with mutual benefits. The
federation gives both schools considerable clout, both in Thanet and in Kent and we have
had a good deal of national media interest over the last few years. Kate Greig, Headteacher
at King Ethelbert, works very closely with me and with Maureen Wolloshin, the outgoing
Head of School at Dane Court – and this will continue in the future. It is perhaps the most
important feature of our federation, that we have three colleagues working as a close team
to provide leadership to both schools. We hope to extend this close working partnership
with Cliftonville Primary School and The Ellington Hereson School, both of whom will join
our Multi Academy Trust very soon. We also hope that Hartsdown Academy and two further
primary schools will join us in due course.
We are not a ‘predatory’ multi academy trust, seeking to take over schools and build an
empire. On the contrary, we are determined to provide a local solution for perceived under
performance by building a close structural partnership between schools. Each school will
share collective responsibility for each other and will provide both challenge and support.
The MAT will be a sustainable system of governance and there will be no chief executive
role. We are determined to develop a school led, self sustaining education system in Thanet,
dedicated to providing an outstanding education for all children in the area.
When the federation was set up over four years ago and both Dane Court and King Ethelbert
took on Heads of School, we were advised to have rigorous job descriptions for each. We
ignored the advice completely and decided to ‘feel our way’ and see how the roles
developed. A Head of School runs the day to day operations of the whole school. He or she
is basically the Headteacher, but does not have ultimate responsibility – I do! We very much
work as a team. We share an office (although I am only there for some of the time) and we
work out responsibilities based on our individual strengths and weaknesses. During the last
few years, for example, I have mainly concentrated on BSF (see below), developing the IB
and IBCC, working with the Governing Body and with other schools, Kent County Council
and the outside world. Maureen has dealt with everything else – so it is a very big job, but
with an experienced Executive Headteacher to support, advise and share ideas. I have
consulted both Maureen and Kate on everything that the federation has been involved in.
We are a close team who get on very well with each other, consult each other extensively
but, at the same time, give each other the space to make decisions and implement them. I
had been a Headteacher (of Dane Court) for four years before the federation was conceived
– but I much prefer this new way of working. A shared, team approach to leadership is not
only a wiser way to run schools, it is also much more fun!
Both Dane Court and King Ethelbert were in Wave 3 of BSF and each benefitted from about
£20 million of investment. We know that we were extremely lucky! Half the secondary
schools in Thanet were in Wave 4 and their plans have been cancelled. BSF took a huge
amount of time over five long years, but the results are superb. Both schools look fantastic –
exactly what the children of Thanet deserved. Dane Court’s design was not radical, as were
some BSF schools, but neither was it conservative. We have a mixture of learning spaces. Art
and ICT are in open plan spaces and each large curriculum area has an open double
classroom space, as well as more traditional classrooms. Teachers are still developing their
styles to suit these spaces.
Dane Court is currently rated as ‘outstanding’ by Ofsted, with a 1 for teaching. However,
that judgement was made in 2007! We are not naïve, nor are we complacent. We recognise
that it will be very difficult to regain that Ofsted grade, should we be inspected in the near
future. As a result, we have focussed fairly ruthlessly over the last year on improving the
effectiveness of our use of data and our student tracking system. We have also focussed on
ensuring that students make progress in every lesson and that our GCSE outcomes reflect
expected or better than expected progress. Our grades improved last year, but we are not
there yet. We commissioned a ‘Mocksted’ from KCC officers a few weeks ago and were
found to be ‘good’ – but on the cusp of ‘outstanding’. Too many lessons were graded as
requiring improvement – because teachers were not able to evidence clearly enough the
progress that each student was making. We believe that we have sharpened up
considerably and that we are very much on track to retain our ‘outstanding’ status.
However, it is a key priority that we should not lose this momentum with the appointment
of a new Head of School. Dane Court needs to maintain its pace, even if this is sometimes
difficult for staff.
Dane Court is a Teaching School. We were successful in our bid last April, having spent a
considerable amount of time and effort in preparation. However, in the same way that we
see our MAT as a partnership of equals, we also see Teaching School status as a partnership.
We have formed a company, East Kent Learning Alliance (EKLA), to run the activities of the
Teaching School and we have formed a powerful and, I believe, very effective partnership
with several local schools to share the responsibility of being a Teaching School. Hartsdown
Academy, Sandwich Technology School, Canterbury Academy, Herne Bay High School and
Joy Lane Primary School all share that responsibility – and we are about to be joined by two
more successful primary schools. We have developed a CPD offer and Dane Court and King
Ethelbert have sought to specialise in developing the quality of teaching – as a result of our
training as a ‘facilitation School’. We are heavily involved in developing Schools Direct and
are in the process of considering becoming a ‘SCIT’, a School Centred Initial Teacher Training
provider in our own right.
There is still a long way to go to develop the Teaching School model into an effective local
provider of school improvement. As local authorities face further cuts to their educational
provision and as the large academy chains begin the crumble (my ardent hope!!) – it will be
vitally important for Teaching Schools to be well placed to deliver support to other schools. I
believe absolutely in collaboration and the need to improve the education we provide for
our children through partnerships between schools, in a school led system. Our work as a
multi academy trust, as a Teaching School and as the hub for a world IB pilot to develop the
IBCC are all evidence of this commitment. However, collaboration cannot be at the cost of
Dane Court. We have found that our work in partnership with others has allowed us to
identify best practice and implement it here and has enabled us to recruit top quality staff
who want to work in a forward looking environment.
In spite of the current view that few teachers want to be headteachers, I believe that this is
a brilliant time to lead a school. I had nothing against local authorities and I was proud to
work with Kent County Council – as I still am. I do not believe that academy status is the
answer to everything, only that it is a means to an end. However, I do believe that the
current revolution that we are going through will not result in chaos – because it will be
down to us, the professionals, to design how schools will be run in the future. Headteachers
have massive responsibility and can affect the lives of thousands of children. Indeed,
Headteachers can transform the fortunes of whole communities. I believe in the magic of
education – that if you believe that there are no glass ceilings, then you won’t bang your
head on one. Dane Court is at the very centre of a drive to improve the lives of children in
Thanet, not just those in this school, but in all the schools in the area. Working as a team of
leaders, I believe that we can take advantage of the national revolution in education and
effect a permanent and radical change to the life chances of people in this area. Michael
Gove’s increasingly frequent radical changes in policy might be upsetting and de-stabilising –
and particularly in a deprived context such as Thanet, however, he is also creating the room
for us to take over – Headteachers. The trick is to be permanently positive and to seek out
the opportunities to improve what we can offer our children. I don’t want to change my
career – I absolutely love it. I am privileged to be a part of a team of school leaders and I
invite you to apply to join us.
If the job sounds attractive, please move quickly. Feel free to contact me at either Dane
Court or King Ethelbert to speak to me – better still, if you want to ask anything about the
post, e-mail me on Luxmoore@danecourt.kent.sch.uk and leave your phone number. To
apply, please fill in an application form, available on the school website – and write a letter
setting out why you think you would be suitable for the job. Please send these complete
with a CV by email to hobbs@danecourt.kent.sch.uk or by post to Dane Court Grammar
School, Broadstairs Road, Broadstairs, KENT, CT10 2RT. The closing date is Friday 29th
November 2013.
This is an exciting school in which to work, right at the heart of the furnace that will, in due
course, forge a new system of state education in England. I hope that you apply and I look
forward to meeting you in due course.
Yours sincerely,
Paul Luxmoore
Executive Headteacher