Perks at Villiers
Perks of working at Villiers
We have a huge suite of professional learning opportunities in school and use our PMR system combined with staff aspirations to construct this. Staff are encouraged and supported financially to become examination markers and to carry out extra qualifications such as the NPQ* suite, Master’s Degrees and Doctorates. All teams belong to their professional subject association in order to continue developing their subject knowledge and pedagogy. Middle and Senior Leaders regularly meet with their counterparts from other schools in the local authority to collaborate and share best practice as part of the Ealing Learning Partnership. *National Professional Qualifications including NPQML, NPQSL and NPQH.
On Thursdays staff finish teaching early so they can meet, plan and learn collaboratively with their departments and pastoral teams. All events such as parents evenings take place on Thursdays so that staff only ever have to plan child-care or a late finish one night of the week. Where meetings or events run later in the evening we provide a meal for all staff. Staff meetings take place on a Tuesday after school for one hour.
At Villiers we have marking and planning week every half-term where no meetings are scheduled and staff can make sure they are up to date with their planning and marking or use the time as they wish with their departments.
We do not grade lessons and all visits to lessons are formative. We recognise that walking into a lesson a few times a year only gives a small snapshot of the work our teachers are doing so created Bespoke Performance Coaching where staff plan together, observe the planning in action and review the lesson together focusing on strengths and areas for development collaboratively.
Staff work with their performance manager to set targets which will see them develop over the course of the year but none of them rely on arbitrary unreliable data or one-off snapshot lesson visits.
Staff (and pupils!) are entitled to a free social breakfast every Friday in our canteen and free tea and coffee making facilities are available throughout the day in the staff room.
Staff can take on extra duties and are paid to do this as well as receiving a free meal.
A range of opportunities to support staff's mental and physical health is on offer throughout the year such as our free Personal Training sessions. Staff are able to access counselling free if and when the need arises and there is a complete staff and pupil mental health plan in action which is reviewed regularly.
Pupils’ behaviour is exemplary (as can be seen from our recent Ofsted report in May 2019) so you are able to share your passion for your subject with the pupils rather than having to zoo-keep!
Our Early Career teachers’ programme has been highly commended by the local authority and is personalised to the needs of every teacher. We recognise that staff will join us having had very different experiences and with different areas to work on in their practice so we make sure our programme reflects this. One fear new teachers often have is that they will get given all of the ‘horrible’ groups that no one else wants. First, we have no horrible groups (!) and second, our Heads of Department work hard to create a timetable which develops all staff’s skills so you will often see ECTs team teaching with more experienced practitioners to develop their understanding of GCSE and A level before they become fully accountable for the results.
We welcome a broad range of Initial Teacher Training programmes at school from Teach First to PGCE. Our Assistant Headteacher oversees all programmes and these are personalised to the needs of the programme and the individual.
We are located about 7 minutes’ walk from Southall train station (on TFL Rail) or a short bus journey from Ealing Broadway (Central line). There is free bicycle storage and staff parking available on site and staff showers are available should you wish to jog in as several of our staff do.
Our staff room was renovated in 2019 and has very energy efficient and modern kitchen facilities as well as comfortable seating and a work area with several computers and a photocopier/printer. The sixth form area and Design Technology areas were also renovated in the same year and boast state of the art learning facilities. Future plans include significantly updating our sports facilities, a brand new building and play areas.
