Associate Assistant Principal

This is an exciting opportunity to join Lift Rawlett School as an Associate Assistant Principal - Pastoral, playing a pivotal role in strengthening behaviour, attendance, safeguarding, pastoral provision and student culture across the school. As a key member of the Senior Leadership Team, you will provide strategic leadership for pastoral systems and interventions, ensuring every student is supported to achieve their full potential both academically and personally.

This is a highly influential role for an ambitious leader who is passionate about improving outcomes, removing barriers to learning and creating a culture where every student can thrive.

Your New School

Lift Rawlett is part of Lift Schools, a trust of 59 schools committed to providing an excellent education in every classroom, every day. The school is led by Executive Principal Jo Paddock and Head of School Tom Martin, both of whom bring a strong track record of delivering rapid and sustained school improvement. Together, they are building a culture rooted in high expectations, strong relationships and a relentless focus on student success. This is a school with genuine momentum, where standards are rising, systems are becoming increasingly embedded, and there is a clear commitment to creating a calm, safe and inclusive environment for all students.

Your New Role

You will provide strategic leadership for behaviour, attendance, student welfare and pastoral support across the school. You will lead the Pastoral Team and Attendance Team, including line management responsibility for Heads of Year and attendance staff, ensuring that systems, interventions and support structures are effective in securing outstanding outcomes for students.

• Provide visible and values-driven leadership across the school.
• Lead and implement strategic plans to improve pastoral, behaviour, and attendance.
• Drive improvements in attendance to ensure the school exceeds national benchmarks.
• Lead interventions for persistent absence and work closely with families to remove barriers to attendance.
• Oversee behaviour systems, rewards, recognition and restorative approaches that promote a positive culture for learning.
• Lead on managed moves, alternative provision and liaison with external agencies.
• Ensure effective pastoral support plans are in place for vulnerable students.
• Analyse behaviour and attendance data to identify trends and drive targeted interventions.
• Support the effective management of safeguarding, student welfare and wellbeing matters.
• Work collaboratively with parents, carers and external partners to improve outcomes for young people.
• Contribute to whole-school strategic planning and school improvement priorities.
• Develop, coach and hold staff accountable through effective leadership and line management.
• Support the implementation of policies and procedures that promote high standards of conduct, attendance and behaviour.

This role offers the opportunity to make a significant whole-school impact and contribute directly to the next phase of Lift Rawlett's improvement journey.

What You'll Need to Succeed

You will be an experienced pastoral leader with a proven track record of improving behaviour, attendance and student outcomes. You will have strong leadership and communication skills, experience in leading and developing teams, and the ability to use data to drive improvement and inform decision-making. A deep understanding of safeguarding, student wellbeing, and pastoral provision is essential, alongside a commitment to ensuring that every student succeeds, regardless of their background.

Why Join Lift Rawlett?

This role offers the opportunity to work alongside an experienced and ambitious leadership team during a key stage of the school's development. It would suit an established pastoral leader seeking broader strategic responsibility or an ambitious senior leader looking to progress towards Vice Principal and beyond.

Who is Lift Schools?

We're a diverse and inclusive network of schools with one clear mission; to provide an excellent education to every child - in every classroom, every day. And we do this across each of our 59 schools. As with our students, we want our team to be empowered to do their best work, supported by the best leadership they've ever had. We acknowledge and appreciate the exceptional efforts of everyone here in making this an incredible organisation.

We offer you:

• Career development and training: Access a wide range of statutory and developmental training to boost your career.
• Generous benefits: From your pension plan to healthcare and financial support, we've got you covered.
• Lifestyle perks: Enjoy discounted gym memberships and travel deals.

Please don't wait until the closing date to apply. Applications will be reviewed as they are received, and interviews may be arranged before the closing date. Closing Date: 6th July 2026. We reserve the right to close this vacancy early should we receive an overwhelming response. All candidates are advised to refer to the job description and person specification before making an application.

Lift Schools are committed to ensuring the highest levels of safeguarding and promoting the welfare of our pupils, and we expect all our people and volunteers to share this commitment. We adopt a fair and consistent recruitment process which is inline with Keeping Children Safe in Education guidance. This includes online checks for shortlisted candidates. All offers of employment are subject to an Enhanced DBS check, references, and where applicable, a prohibition from teaching check. Lift Schools embraces diversity and promotes equality of opportunity. Job share, part-time and flexible working opportunities will be considered. We are a Disability Confident Employer and there is a guaranteed interview scheme for candidates with disabilities who meet the minimum selection criteria.