Secondary Physics Curriculum Writer Full Time

United Learning

Secondary Physics Curriculum Writer

Salary: £40,000 pro rata

Location: United Kingdom- Homebased

Closing date: Tuesday 26 September 2023

The Vacancy

Central Office staff work closely with schools, offering a wealth of expertise to underpin schools’ own knowledge. Our specialist departments, including HR, finance, technology, strategy and performance, estates, and marketing, work alongside dedicated school improvement teams. By joining us, you will provide ongoing support to schools, ultimately improving the outcomes of our pupils.

Purpose of the role

United Learning is refining its coherent, ambitious and aspirational curriculum to support a growing number of teachers across England. Use of the United Curriculum is voluntary in our schools, and it aims to support the consistency and quality of provision in all lessons, and to free up teachers’ planning time, allowing them to spend more of their time adapting resources for individual pupils and classes.

As a Secondary Physics Curriculum Writer, you will join our central team to refine and further develop our Science curriculum. You will:

• Work with the wider Science team – including specialists in primary and secondary – to refine the KS3-4 schemes of work.
• Develop lesson resources – including lesson slides, printable resources, quiz questions, key vocabulary, common misconceptions and how to address them, and other resources as appropriate – that teachers will use to deliver the lesson. These will reflect research-informed pedagogies such as Rosenshine’s Principles of Instruction and will be completed to half termly deadlines.
• Collaborate with our central team – including an artworker and intellectual property specialists – to ensure that all images, diagrams and exam questions used in the curriculum resources have appropriate licencing where required.
• Develop and refine resources for teachers, such as subject knowledge videos, or guidance for teaching units or individual lessons.
• As required, develop and refine a wider range of resources for pupils, such as knowledge organisers or explanatory videos.
• Work alongside the wider secondary curriculum team to – where appropriate – make meaningful links between subjects such as mathematics and geography.
• Work to both the Director of Secondary Science and Director of Curriculum to ensure that the curriculum resources support high quality science teaching and are consistent with United Learning’s overall approach to curriculum design.
• Respond to feedback from teachers, the science curriculum team, and the Director of Curriculum.
• Any other reasonable support as required by the Director of Curriculum in relation to the design of the curriculum.

This an exciting opportunity to work alongside our wider Science team and other curriculum writers to help to shape our vision for the curriculum, and to develop resources that will have a very tangible and positive impact for teachers.

Contract

• Hours can be worked flexibly across the week.
• The role is fully remote and home-based, with only occasional (e.g., termly) travel to our main office locations in London or Peterborough. Travel expenses will be covered by United Learning for these visits.
• The role is offered as a one-year, fixed term contract in the first instance.
• There may be opportunities to extend this for the right candidate.
• If preferred, we can offer this role as a secondment. Conditions of any secondment will be agreed between United Learning, the successful candidate and their school/organisation at the end of the recruitment process.

Rewards and Benefits

• 26 days holiday.
• Competitive salary.
• Contributory pension scheme.
• Occupational sick pay, protecting you and your family.
• Competitive maternity, paternity, and adoption benefits.
• Over 250 employee exclusive benefits through our partners Perkbox, including access to discounted cinema tickets, holidays and gym memberships, car leasing and Cycle2work schemes.
• Continuous Professional Development options that will be tailored to your needs.
• A supportive team across the country.
• We are open to requests for flexible or part-time working; and we encourage open and regular conversations about work-life balance.

Person Specification

• You must be a qualified teacher who has a passion for your subject and experience of teaching Science across Key Stage 3 and Key Stage 4.
• You will have a physics specialism.
• You must have proven expertise in designing a curriculum that is coherent and carefully sequenced.
• You must have expertise in evidence-based pedagogies and be able to apply Rosenshine’s Principles of Instruction consistently in your lesson design.
• You must be proficient in MS Office, including MS PowerPoint and MS Word, and pay close attention to detail.
• You must be able to work autonomously and deliver at pace to agreed timelines and project plans.
• You will embody our ethos of bringing out ‘the best in everyone’, and will demonstrate this in all that you do.
• You may have experience in teaching Key Stage 5.

The recruitment process

The first stage is an online application, which will require your education and employment history and a personal statement that outlines your suitability for the role.

In the second stage, shortlisted candidates will be invited to complete a short task, to help us understand your knowledge, skills and suitability for the role.

In the final stage, shortlisted candidates will be interviewed over MS Teams.

First stage: Applications must be submitted by 26 September 2023.

Second stage: Shortlisted candidates will have from 29 September 2023 to 6 October 2023 to return their completed tasks.

Final stage: Interviews will take place in the week beginning 16 October 2023.

For more information

For a confidential discussion about this role, please contact: Holly Caston.

United Learning

We are part of United Learning, a large and growing, group of schools aiming to offer a life changing education to children and young people across England.

Our schools work as a team and achieve more by sharing than any single school could. Our subject specialists, our Group-wide intranet, our own curriculum and our online learning portal all help us share knowledge and resource, helping to simplify work processes and manage workloads for an improved work-life balance.

As a Group, we can reward our staff better with good career opportunities, better pay, benefits and ultimately, the satisfaction of helping children to succeed. We invest in our staff wellbeing. Our academies each have at least eight INSET days per year (with three of those solely dedicated to planning), and an ongoing group-wide wellbeing programme. It’s an ethos we call ‘the best in everyone’.

We are working hard to become a more diverse organisation – which is key to our commitment to bringing out the best in everyone. We welcome applications from everyone committed to this ethos and would particularly welcome applications from black and minority ethnic candidates, who are currently under-represented in the Group as a whole. We always appoint on merit. We are open to discussing flexible working options.

To Apply

Please apply online by clicking on the following link:

Where support is better shared

United Learning comprises: UCST (Registered in England No: . Charity No. ) and ULT (Registered in England No An Exempt Charity). Companies limited by guarantee. VAT number . Registered address: United Learning, Worldwide House, Thorpe Wood, Peterborough, PE3 6SB.