Working at TA
Principal's Welcome
Torquay Academy is an inspiring place to be; I have been fortunate enough to have been Principal here since January 2014. During this time we have transformed outcomes for our community’s children at GCSE and A level. We are now the first choice school in the area and around 80% of our 6th Form leave us to go onto university (with record numbers applying to Oxbridge).
When I am asked, “What has led to this transformation?” my answer is simple: the quality of the teachers in the school. The single biggest factor that will have an impact on a child’s attainment is the quality of their teacher.
The incredible achievements of our students are due to their exceptional teachers, who are determined to improve their craft whilst teaching a well-thought out and meticulously planned curriculum. We are very fortunate to attract fantastic teachers who want to work in a school where behaviour is excellent and we are at the forefront of educational thinking.
We were the first school in the UK to coach all of our teachers. Staff wellbeing and workload was embraced long before it was a national focus, we have Teaching and Learning cycles and lessons use our excellent centrally planned workbooks.
By working at Torquay Academy you will be working with like-minded colleagues who are determined to transform the lives of the children in our community by ensuring that everyone succeeds.
Our children not only get a first-class academic education, but we also offer an extracurricular programme that rivals the very best independent schools.
You won’t find a person specification with a long list of desirable and essential qualities or job description full of expectations, people who work at Torquay Academy are passionate about their subject, work hard, and care about children and their future. If this sounds like you, we would love to hear from you.
Please contact me to arrange a visit to Torquay Academy or to speak to us so you can find out more about this very special school. Please email admin@tqacademy.co.uk or call 01803 329351 to speak to my PAs, Amy or Steph to find a time for a visit or conversation.
Steve Margetts, Principal
Why work at TA?
You will be joining a school where teachers are highly valued and seen as the key to our students’ success. We pride ourselves on delivering the highest quality teaching and learning for our students; we also believe that our teachers have the right to be the very best practitioners. Incremental coaching is the single biggest monetary and time investment we make in developing a world-class education and providing teaching staff with bespoke CPD which has immediate impact in the classroom. In the words of Dylan Wiliam, at Torquay Academy we believe all teachers need to improve, ‘not because they are not good enough, but because they can be even better’.
Coaching
You will receive 1:1 coaching with an experienced coach. Our judgement-free coaching model is designed to support you to make small, tangible steps to improve your practice each week. This is supported by Doug Lemov’s Teach Like a Champion (TLAC) techniques which are used consistently across the school.
CPD
You will be provided with ongoing professional development that we believe is unmatched by other schools.
- The academic year begins with our Teaching and Learning Conference.
- Six Twilight sessions throughout the year will ensure that you have the tools to continue to drive your classroom practice forward. These events will introduce you to new ideas and allow you to start to put them into practice with your department.
- Weekly subject meetings take place in departments that focus on the best way to deliver our curriculum.
- Two days for curriculum development. To enable teams to work together for an extended period of time.
Growing as a Leader
Torquay Academy is the perfect place to develop your leadership skills. By not being part of a large MAT there are opportunities to innovate and experiment within the school. All staff members are invited to join our SMLT (Senior and Middle Leadership Team) who meet through the year to work on whole-school leadership projects.
There are many progression opportunities within the school. Having Torquay Academy on your CV makes you a very sought after leader.
Coaching at TA is done in such a warm and helpful manner, which meant I felt confident to ask questions, plan and rehearse in our coaching sessions and this then had a real impact on the teaching and the learning of my students. I now have the privilege of coaching several teachers and am fortunate enough to be able to create a purposeful environment and have time to support the teaching and learning at TA.
Katie Aplin, Associate Assistant Principal and Maths Teacher
What's it like working at TA?
Close Teams
The school is divided into eight learning areas: Maths, English, Science, Humanities, MFL, Creative Arts, Sport and Enterprise. Within each learning area you will find a close team who work collaboratively and support each other. Each of these teams have their own staff workroom with kitchen facilities and free tea and coffee. There is a community beyond your immediate team in the school of dedicated staff who you will get to know.
Specific Benefits
There are a number of specific benefits of working at Torquay Academy, these include:
- Free laptop for use in school and home
- Priority admission to the Academy for secondary places
- Free gym membership for you and your family
- Cycle to work scheme through salary sacrifice
- Electric Vehicle leasing scheme through salary sacrifice
Staff Wellbeing
In September 2017, an article in The Guardian outlined the approaches that we had already implemented to reduce the workload burden. Teaching is hard work and we make sacrifices to ensure the very best for our students, however as a school we work hard to support our colleagues.
We believe that we can support teacher wellbeing in two ways:
- Reducing unnecessary workload through centralised curriculum planning, behaviour management and analysing everything teachers are asked to do.
- Equipping teachers with the skills and knowledge they need to excel in the job.
We are the only UK school to be working with the US organisation Educators’ Thriving. The majority of our CPD is based on professional development, but our work with Educators’ Thriving supports our personal development as well.
We know the importance of great teachers - this is why we will invest in you, support you and create an environment where you will want to stay. It is rare for a teacher to leave Torquay Academy unless it is for a promotion.
Teaching & Learning at TA
Principles of Teaching
We base our lesson design on four Principles of Teaching:
- Retrieval Practice: Do Now
- Hear from an Expert: Teacher Exposition
- Modelling and Deliberate Practice: I do, We do, You do
- Progress check: Demonstrating Knowledge and Skills
Our Principles of Teaching help us to dive a little deeper into some of the core components of an effective lesson. This is not a comprehensive list of what a planned lesson might consist of, but a summary of the most important features. This is then supported by a description of what teachers can do to deliver these elements effectively. Importantly, we also describe what students themselves can do to engage more effectively with these different phases of a lesson.
TLAC and our T&L Blueprint
Doug Lemov’e Teach Like a Champion techniques have formed the basis of our pedagogy for many years and we have been fortunate to work closely with Lemov and the Uncommon Schools to continue to develop our practitioners. In 2020 we developed our bespoke Teaching and Learning Blueprint, which takes our explicit framework for teacher development to the next level: ensuring that we have a high floor and no ceiling approach to improving pedagogy.
The Blueprint spells out our framework for improving classroom practice through coaching, really delving into the core of what effective use of TLAC strategies looks like at Torquay Academy, and providing a comprehensive suite of possible areas for development and highly specific ‘action steps’ relating to any given teaching technique. The Blueprint drills each technique down to the minutiae, demonstrating to both coach and coachee how all teachers can ‘be even better’ and further develop their use of each technique. Each action step is accompanied by a suggested ‘practice’, for classroom teachers to script and practise with the support of their coach, prior to going live in the classroom. Not only does The Blueprint improve the quality and consistency of coaching, it identifies what excellent practice might look like - allowing staff to take their teaching practice even further through self-coaching.
Having a comprehensive blueprint of effective teaching strategies and techniques to use in the classroom, as well as being coached on how to implement these, has really helped me to develop as a teacher. The Blueprint has given me tangible and achievable steps that I can work on from week-to-week and because these are being used by teachers across the school, the students have a clear sense of expectations and routines that help them to feel comfortable in the classroom, focus on their learning and get the most from lessons.
Neil Jones, KS5 English Coordinator
Workbooks
Teachers have worked collaboratively to create our own bespoke workbooks for each subject. The high-quality curriculum materials allow us to work smarter, meaning we can focus our lesson preparation time on preparing and scripting our delivery of the curriculum and how we will model responses of the highest quality, rather than creating or photocopying resources from scratch. The workbooks enable us to maximise the use of weekly subject CPD, as we can plan and practise the high-quality delivery of the pre-planned upcoming lessons and share best practice. It also allows us to continually tweak our lesson resources, ready for the next cycle of workbooks, so that we are constantly improving our curriculum.
Being new to the school this year, I have really benefited from the bespoke workbooks used here at Torquay Academy. These workbooks create a high-quality centralised curriculum; ensuring consistency within, and across, departments. The workbooks have reduced my workload and consequently, have allowed me to spend time preparing my lessons to be of the highest quality for the learners at TA. To ensure the highest quality delivery of our curriculum, I will spend time annotating my workbooks with which students I want to pose questions to; script my transitions between activities; identify specific terminology that should be unpicked etc. Workbooks provide a platform to work smarter and allow for a greater focus on building relationships with the students.
Ben Swettenham, Science Teacher and Head of Psychology
Starting your career at TA
As an ECT joining Torquay Academy you will find that the support you receive will be exemplary. I have responsibility for your induction to the school and to support you as you begin this exciting, rewarding and vital career.
During your first two years you will benefit from a reduced teaching load.
You will work with a highly trained, subject specialist ECT mentor, who will meet you weekly, offering subject specific support and coaching to allow you to settle into life at Torquay Academy.
You will join our renowned incremental coaching programme, where every teacher at Torquay Academy receives fortnightly incremental coaching throughout the school year, using Steplab and AnalysisPro. This will allow you to continue to develop and refine your teaching practice and to work on specific areas of your own pedagogical practice.
Your department will share a wealth of well-planned schemes of learning and teaching resources, including bespoke workbooks, which will significantly reduce your initial planning workload, giving you time to focus on your ECT learning and development.
As an ECT Delivery Lead for SWIFT (South West Institute for Teachers), I will lead your statutory ECT curriculum, through a series of seminars, online webinars and discussions. I will also support you through all your assessment points, including the completion of your ECT programme, to ensure you develop strong foundations at this exciting and important point in your teaching career.
Please read, below, the experiences of two teachers who both started their teaching careers at Torquay Academy:
“Joining TA as an ECT has been a great experience so far for me. I have a dedicated ECT mentor, a teaching coach and the whole staff body is enormously supportive. The school bolsters a wealth of shared resources which has given me the opportunity to absorb the knowledge and expertise of other excellent teachers.”
Willis Lawrence - ECT Maths teacher
“I started my teaching career at TA and have been supported to learn and develop so I could take on new roles including being a Head of Year and now an Associate Assistant Principal for Humanities. I enjoy being part of a community which pushes itself to be brilliant and at the forefront of best practice
but does so with humour and care for all.”
Sophie Cape - Associate Assistant Principal, Head of Humanities
