Strood Academy are seeking to appoint a Safeguarding Officer to join them in January 2023. This is a truly exciting opportunity for a highly motivated and focused individual who wants to play a key role in working closely with academy staff to ensure student safeguarding needs are met and responded to appropriately. The successful candidate will be responsible for
achieving the highest possible levels of safeguarding and well-being for all pupils at Strood Academy and therefore must be a dedicated team-player with a resilient mindset.

The Safeguarding Officer will be responsible for Safeguarding and promoting the welfare of children, which is defined as;

Protecting children from maltreatment
Preventing impairment of children’s mental and physical health or development
Ensuring that children grow up in circumstances consistent with the provision of safe and effective care
Taking action to enable all children to have the best outcomes.
This is a fixed-term position for 1 year, offering an actual salary of £19,472 - £20,189 per annum (£21,968 - £22,777 full-time equivalent), commensurate with experience, working 37.5 hours per week, term time + 2 weeks of inset.

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Working for Strood Academy: Since opening in 2009, our academy has transformed the educational opportunities and outcomes for girls and boys in Strood. The improvement in academic performance has been driven by a talented and committed workforce, the hard work of our students, and support from parents and our community. Our new buildings in Carnation Road were designed in partnership with Nicholas Hare and built by BAM as our main contractor at a cost of £26m. They opened in September 2012 and have outstanding learning environments and outside play areas as well as fantastic sports facilities. The buildings reflect our education vision of creating a mature and purposeful educational environment where children of all abilities can learn and thrive.

Our vision is to be an inclusive community where we are all kind, respectful and resilient in our journey towards excellence. Our students thrive through an enriching and diverse curriculum that offers a global perspective, empowering all to become inquisitive lifelong learners.

Our core values are to be:

Inquisitive
Respectful
Resilient
Kind
Our purpose at Strood Academy is to:

nurture students’ aspirations and build resilience within an environment of tolerance, respect and empathy;
shape leaders within a global community;
develop and celebrate knowledgeable and inquiring minds to promote lifelong learning and;
help young people develop into well educated, considerate and caring citizens.
We have a growing roll call of 1400 children, including 200 in Sixth Form. Working in our academy takes a lot of dedication and hard work, but for the right individuals, it can be an incredibly rewarding experience and contribute significantly to personal and professional development.

Why work at Strood Academy?

Our recent OFSTED inspection has confirmed that the academy continues to be judged ‘Good’ and is very strong in many aspects and areas. The full report can be found on our website and I would like to share a quote which reflects the culture and ambition we all have for our students. ​​​​​​​
‘The principal advocates a culture of high expectations, aspirations and traditional values. Leaders’ high expectations are reflected in the ambitious International Baccalaureate curriculum. This provides a global perspective which encourages pupils to be inquisitive lifelong learners’. To read the full report please click here.​​​​​​​

Centralised behaviour system and detentions - simple for teachers to follow allowing disruptive free classrooms.
Our commitment to the development of all staff - CPD on Wednesday afternoons and the opportunity to collaborate with staff from other schools in the LAT. Also all staff at Strood receive regular coaching feedback through our on-line platform on-track.
Strood academy is easily accessible by A2 and the high speed train can allow for travel into London in less than 30 minutes.
We have a common sense approach to workload. All teachers are expected to feedback or live mark. We also work closely as a Trust allowing for centralised resources to be shared across our secondary schools.
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Being part of Leigh Academies Trust: As of 1st September 2022, our Trust comprises 30 geographically organised academies (14 secondaries, 14 primaries and 2 special) educating 20,000 students, and employing 3,000 talented staff. The Trust is establishing four ‘clusters’ of academies: North Kent; Central Kent; South East London; Medway. In addition, the Trust is responsible for one of the region’s biggest initial teaching training organisations, a large teaching school hub and is an accredited apprenticeship provider. Our future plans are found in our Vision 2030 document available on our website.​​​​​​​

As part of Leigh Academies Trust, you will have ample opportunity to collaborate with your peers both within the academy and across the whole Trust. This is an important part of our vision as we know through experience that we perform better when we work together. You are supported to undertake regular self-development to continue your professional development and hopefully progress further within the organisation.

Our commitment to safeguarding: Leigh Academies Trust and all of our academies are committed to ensuring the highest levels of safeguarding and promoting the welfare of our pupils, and we expect all our staff and volunteers to share this commitment. We adopt a fair, robust and consistent recruitment process across all academies and business units which is in line with Keeping Children Safe in Education guidance. This includes online checks for shortlisted candidates - you can read more about this in our Recruitment Guidance. All offers of employment are subject to an Enhanced DBS check, references, and where applicable, a prohibition from teaching check.

​​​​​​​Our commitment to equality and diversity: As a Trust, we are passionate about diversity and recognise that as individuals, we all bring something unique to the role regardless of any protected characteristics which is why we treat all of our people equally, without compromise. We are committed to providing equality and fairness throughout our recruitment and employment practices and not discriminating on any grounds.

​​​​​​​​​​​​​​Based on the quality and quantity of applications received, Leigh Academies Trust reserves the right to close this vacancy sooner than the specified closing date. Applicants will be notified of this where possible. Therefore, early applications are encouraged.​​