Careers and Ambition Lead

King Harold Academy (KHA) has a clear, ambitious vision: to be one of the kindest, hardest-working, and highest-achieving schools in the UK. We are a proud community school supported by incredible students, involved parents, and a talented, committed staff.

Why Join KHA? KHA is a genuinely lovely place to work. Our staff are deeply committed to one another’s professional development and to improving our pupils’ life chances. We have the privilege of teaching polite, friendly, and ambitious children who enjoy school and value their teachers.

The Role: Careers & Ambition Lead

We are seeking an enthusiastic, strategic, and proactive Careers & Ambition Lead to completely transform our whole-school careers landscape. At King Harold Academy, Ambition is our driving core value. This role is a unique hybrid post designed for a professional who can orchestrate high-level culture, deliver transformative 1:1 guidance, and coordinate elite work-related opportunities.

Investing in Potential: We are looking for an individual with the foundational skills and experience to deliver excellent careers advice. Crucially, we also want to provide a brilliant opportunity for a candidate with great potential. If you possess a hunger to grow, exceptional emotional intelligence, and passion for driving social mobility, we will invest heavily in your development supporting you with advanced training tracks (including pathways toward the Level 6 Careers Diploma) to scale into an elite leader.

The successful candidate will be:

• Aligned with our values: Kind, hard-working, and unapologetically ambitious.
• An Inspiring Advisor: Able to conduct high-level, impactful personal guidance across KS3 and KS4.
• An Operational Connector: Driven to build premium partnerships with local businesses, organizing exceptional work-related learning.
• Growth-Oriented: Resilient, solutions-focused, and keen to develop their professional practice.

Benefits of TKAT: As part of The Kemnal Academies Trust (TKAT), you will benefit from:

• Excellent professional development and tailored support tracks.
• Opportunities for career progression across the Trust network.
• Flexible working options and a deep focus on staff wellbeing.

Safeguarding: TKAT is committed to safeguarding and promoting the welfare of children and expects all staff and volunteers to share this commitment. Offers of employment will be subject to the full safer recruitment process, including an enhanced disclosure and barring service check.

Access to interview: Be Who You Are at TKAT - should you be selected and invited to interview please let us know if you require us to adapt the recruitment process to enable you to participate as your authentic self.

Our Commitment - Equal, Inclusive, Diverse: TKAT is committed to inclusion, diversity and equality of opportunity by encouraging and welcoming differences, listening to individual experiences, aspirations and accomplishments and learning how to grow better together. We welcome applications from all suitable candidates, regardless of any protected characteristic.

In TKAT we promote flexible working practices and opportunities to promote a positive work life balance. It is often said that a person’s time at school is “the best days of your life” and at King Harold we would certainly agree. In order to ensure that this is true we value and promote individuals being challenged and inspired to achieve within a community that is characterised by co-operation and support.

For us academic ability and personal development go hand in hand. Therefore: Students are taught how to think logically and morally. They are challenged to think critically along with learning the core knowledge of English, Maths and Science. It is our belief that students should be versed in the “The best which has been thought and said” along with understanding the modern, changing world in which we live. This is evident in our curriculum, our teaching and every interaction we have.

Our motto is: Challenge, Support, Inspire and this encapsulates our values. High challenge - low stress. This is why students are made to “think hard” in lessons but in a supportive environment that takes into account all students ambitions and aptitudes. Without inspiration life is dull which is why we put a focus not just on challenge and support but also inspire. It is our belief that learning should be inspiring as should being part of a school community.

Executive Headteacher welcome: I am delighted to be joining King Harold as Executive Headteacher from September 2020. It is my passionate belief that a school should be a place where young people can thrive and grow into the best possible versions of themselves. A school shouldn’t be an exam factory hellbent only on achieving high grades at the expense of a child’s mental health. However, it must be a place where all students can achieve the best they are capable of in whatever field they choose.

They will achieve because they have high expectations of themselves and an in-built ambition to succeed; some will have that already others will gain it along the way. We want our students to leave as confident well-rounded individuals who are as prepared as any young person could be for the life after school. School should be a place of hard work and of enjoyment. A place where students can have positive experiences that they will happily remember for the rest of their lives.

Students only get one real opportunity of attending a secondary school and we all need to ensure that theirs is one they will always look back on fondly. As school leaders, our role is to provide an environment where young people can feel safe and want to come into school. We need to be able to promise our students and you as their parents that the learning environment will be one where the students can concentrate and work without interruptions.

We need to be able to promise you that whatever the ability of the student, they will be able to make progress in all areas that is at least as good, if not better than they would achieve at other schools. We know that not all students are the same and that their interests will vary greatly. We know that in order to thrive as adults, we will need to equip them with skills picked up in sports, dance, drama, public speaking, computing and languages as well as English maths and science.

In all subjects, the minimum expectation for you and your children is well planned lessons that are carefully structured to help them learn and to remember what they have learned. You should all expect well considered feedback that is designed to not tell them what don’t know, but instead inform them about the best ways to improve.

It is my role to oversee what happens at the school. I have to make sure that the biggest possible percentage of money goes directly into your child’s learning and that none is wasted needlessly. To ensure that your children are provided with the best possible teachers and that those teachers are provided with all the resources and training they require to help your children learn. You will see that we set high standards here and that we have high expectations, I cannot imagine that as parents and guardians of our young people, you would want anything else. I very much look forward to meeting with as many of you as possible in the coming weeks and months. I cannot wait to be a part of the King Harold family.