Benefits of Working at Elthorne Park High School

At EPHS we have a very high level of staff retention and we are proud that many talented, committed colleagues choose to spend a large part of their career in education with us. 

There is a strong sense of community at our school and our staff enjoy working with young people from diverse socio-economic backgrounds with a broad range of prior and current attainment levels.  In our most recent staff survey, 97% of our staff agreed or strongly agreed that they are proud to work at our school, with a similarly high percentage stating that they enjoy their work at EPHS.   Students are keen and eager to learn, with Ofsted describing the behaviour at our school as ‘exemplary’.  There are robust behaviour management systems in place to ensure that teachers can deliver lessons without any low-level disruption.  

We take workload and wellbeing seriously and always consider staff workload carefully when we plan any changes to our ways of working. 

We have chosen to keep teaching allocations below the maximum permitted and have introduced an extended autumn half-term break to give our staff additional rest during the longest term of the school year. 

We have introduced marking & moderation days at pressure points in the school calendar, with wellbeing activities provided for staff on these days.  All employees have access to the Smart Clinic wellbeing package, including 24-hour employee assistance offering health, financial and legal advice or emergency counselling.  On Fridays our staff can collect a free coffee and cake from the popular ‘Busy Bean’ cafe.  

In the classroom teachers follow some key principles (‘The Elthorne Way’) and are provided with detailed curriculum plans and backbone resources, however, our teachers retain the freedom to innovate and bring their own ideas into their lesson planning.  Each year our carefully-planned CPD programme gives teachers and teaching assistants autonomy over how they develop their practice around a ‘golden thread’ for CPD.  Appraisal is developmental and lessons are never graded.  We support our staff to complete qualifications such as NPQs and Master’s degrees, while our teachers play an active role in borough-wide subject networks and CPD.   Our ECT and ITT programmes have received considerable praise in recent years and many of our Early Career Teachers have remained with us and become successful middle and even senior leaders.   At EPHS we promote whole-class feedback to reduce the time spent on individualised marking.  

Elthorne Park High School is located near to Boston Manor underground station (Piccadilly Line, 8-minute walk) and is within reach of Hanwell Station (Elizabeth Line).  We provide showers and lockers for staff who opt to cycle or run to work and colleagues can purchase a bike or accessories through Cyclescheme with savings of up to 42%.  Our staff are required to be in their classrooms by 8:40am (8:25am on Wednesdays for our weekly staff briefing) and after-school meetings and twilight INSET are always held on a Monday to help staff to plan for childcare.  We have continued to hold parents evenings online and staff have the option to conduct these from home. We always consider requests for part-time working and currently about 1 in 4 staff have some form of part-time working arrangement.  We value teachers from all backgrounds, ages and levels of experience and are proud to have an even spread of teachers across different age ranges.  

Elthorne Park High School is a caring, vibrant community where staff and students can develop a lifelong love of learning.  We take recruitment very seriously and will only employ the very best people who can demonstrate that they will make a positive difference to the educational outcomes and character development of our young people.  If you are interested in applying for a vacancy and would like a tour of the school, please email the headteacher’s PA (Wendy Henderson).