Assistant Head of Secondary - Data and Assessment
Job Description
Accountabilities:
• Work strategically with colleagues to lead and deliver an efficient Secondary School timetable, ensuring effective deployment of staff, allocation of rooms and other resources.
• Lead and quality assure Secondary School assessment systems and processes, ensuring consistency of application and approach across subject areas. Work with Heads of Department to ensure assessment system enables effective analysis of attainment and progress of students.
• Through liaison with Heads of Year and Heads of Department, ensure students in Years 7-13, achieve the highest possible outcomes with regard to academic attainment and progress, highlighting subject-specific and cross-subject student underachievement to appropriate stakeholders.
• Develop reporting systems for all stakeholders to ensure moment, granular-level analysis of student performance is available to parents, students’ teachers and school leaders, alongside scheduled summative reports to parents.
• Collaborate with the school’s Admissions department, pastoral and academic leaders in leading the allocation of Secondary School students to classes, ensuring an even distribution of academic, pastoral, gender profiles across classes.
• Lead, consult and compile the annual assessment calendar, ensuring general awareness of dates, booking of resources and coordination with concerned teams. Ensure the assessment calendar is represented within the whole-school calendar reporting.
• Oversee and administer the scheduling, rooming and invigilation of internal and external examinations. Collect and quality assure subject examination requirements, storage & distribution of papers, working with heads of department as necessary. Lead, meet and support the Examinations Officer in executing his/her duties as necessary.
• Work with Primary School counterparts to ensure the ECA programme is broad in nature, appropriately staffed and distributed across the school week.
• Manage the daily staff absence and cover process for Secondary School lessons. Develop a comprehensive cover rota that prioritises assignment based on key factors including teaching load and subject specialism.
• Lead the organisation in all aspects of Secondary School Academic Review Days and Parents Evenings. Ensure parents are communicated with in a timely fashion to facilitate booking of appointments.
• Lead in balancing staff workloads across timetabled lessons, ECA commitments, duties, cover and examination invigilation.
• Lead and administer benchmarking assessments including CAT4, GL Progress Tests, PASS, PISA, PIRLS, and TIMSS, ensuring regulatory requirements are consistently met. Develop processes to ensure students are prepared for assessments, the results of which are incorporated within the holistic assessment system.
• Attend school-based Local Advisory Board meetings as necessary and play an active role in the National Agenda Priorities Sub-Committee, driving improvement within this area.
• Proactively work with colleagues to ensure the school meets and exceeds its UAE National Agenda targets.
Other Responsibilities
• Collaborate with the Secondary School Leadership Team, to assist in the recruitment, training, supervision, and evaluation of teaching staff. Provide mentorship, coaching, and professional development opportunities to enhance teaching effectiveness as necessary.
• Collaborate with the Secondary School Leadership Team and curriculum coordinators to review, develop, implement, and evaluate the curriculum.
• Collaborate with colleagues within the Senior School and broader school community. Participate in professional development activities, contribute to the school's professional learning community, and share best practices to enhance teaching and learning outcomes.
• Contribute effectively to the school’s strategic improvement planning, actively leading in areas pertinent to this job description, while supporting wider school development. Collaboratively lead and support as required with regard to school inspections, audits and accreditation.
• Encourage and support employees to use work hours efficiently and prioritise tasks effectively.
Indirect Leadership
• Provide effective line management to academic / administrative departments as allocated within relevant and published organisational charts.
Key Performance Indicators (KPI’s)
• Delivery of a high-quality Secondary School Timetable.
• Implements and maintains a consistent and robust assessment system that enables granular level tracking of students against subject specific targets, aiding the identification of student progress and required interventions as necessary. Timely reporting to stakeholders.
• Effective coordination of Secondary School internal and external examination schedules and invigilation.
• Administration of ARD and Parents Evening system and processes.
• Efficient cover processes to manage staff absence.
• Administration of the Secondary School Duty rota.
• Extra-Curricular Activity provision and engagement of students.
Adhoc
• Initiate effort and energy beyond the typical work day, where tasks require additional commitment.
• Attend staff meetings, school events and serve on committees as required.
• Perform other duties as requested by direct & dotted reporting line managers / supervisors.
Skills
• Degree in Education.
• Teaching experience and a proven track record of middle / senior school leadership.
• Strong communication, interpersonal, and organisational skills.
• Knowledge of instructional strategies, curriculum, assessment and pastoral practices.
• Ability to lead and inspire a team of educators.
Job Location UAE Company Industry Education Job Role Education Career Level Mid Career - Over 2 years experience
GEMS METROPOLE SCHOOL - MOTOR CITY
Education Dubai, United Arab Emirates GEMS Metropole School, located in Motor City in Dubai, opened its doors in September 2014 and has continued to flourish and grow in student number and stature. The school is now open to students from FS1 to Year 13 with an all-through school capacity of 4200 students offering the National Curriculum for England. The school has become well-known for their key areas of success, such as a ... strong community approach to education, highly inclusive school support to strong secondary options at Key Stage 4 and academic and vocational choices at Key Stage 5. In addition, the school has well-equipped classrooms, a highly competitive sports department, a farm, digital media rooms, innovation laboratories, dedicated science labs, music, art rooms and libraries. Students from our Foundation Stage classes have access to attractive indoor and outdoor learning areas to explore and investigate, high quality Information Technology provision and Science provision to develop IT and Science-based literacy, and most recently a language hub to support key language skills across school. In the Primary section, with the use of 1:1 technologies, students and teachers use iPads and interactive whiteboards to enhance learning opportunities where appropriate. The Secondary school continues to develop and grow and has seen the LEAD and skills programme blossom supporting students to make informed decisions and develop their learning and leadership skills. A new focus of personalised pathways is supporting students in their preparation for life after school and their journey towards success. In conclusion, GEMS Metropole School is a member of the British Schools of the Middle East (BSME) with the School Principal as a BSME Country Rep. This allows both teachers and students alike to continue to grow and develop with the rich traditions of the National Curriculum offerings and align itself with ‘like schools’ across the region and overseas.
