Head of Rank-Weston House

This is a rare opportunity to run a large junior (ages 7-11) boarding house in a successful and expanding state school located in a delightful 270 acre “Capability” Brown Park just outside the M25 and with excellent transport links by train and motorway.

Rank and Weston were originally a Junior Boys House and a Junior Girls’ house but they were amalgamated almost ten years ago. The ground floor is co-educational, though certain rooms are designated for boys or girls. One half of the first floor is for boys and the other, accessed by another staircase is for girls. We have two hobbies rooms, two prep rooms with some computers and two TV rooms. The common room is where all boarders meet and the place where we receive parents.

We currently have 51 boarders, 30 boys and 21 girls, as well as 80 Flexi Boarders who board for up to ten nights a year.

Rank-Weston House, like all our houses, is very well-staffed in comparison to houses in most other schools. We have a Head of House, a resident non-teaching Deputy Head of House, three resident teaching tutors, two non-resident matrons and two/three non-resident teaching tutors. There are four staff flats in the house.

The programme of co-curricular activities after school is rich, offering rugby, football, cricket, arts and crafts as well as prep support sessions. After tea we offer the children a variety of activities including swimming, football, cricket, netball, dance and music activities.

We are looking for a non-teaching Head of House and would be keen to employ a spouse as well.

Royal Alexandra and Albert School

With 430 boarders, there are very few independent or state schools with a larger number of boarders. When our planned expansion is complete we expect to be up to 1,100 on roll including 500 boarders, having been just 530 pupils of whom 330 were boarders in 2001. As a State School we only admit UK or EU passport holders or others who already have the right of residence in the UK meaning that we have very few overseas boarders (they are primarily French or Spanish and number fewer than twenty) and none with Tier 4 visas.

So what exactly is a State Boarding School ?

The education provided between 8.30 am and 3.35 pm is financed by government through the Local Authority – in our case Surrey County Council. Everything else, the boarding provision, meals and the activities that we run, is financed by the fees paid by parents.

We have two categories of pupils. Full Boarders, whose parents currently pay £4,340 per term which is only £13,020 per year ! There is no fee reduction for weekly boarders. We usually have 200-250 boarders in total on a Saturday night with around 30-35 in Rank-Weston.

Flexi Boarders, who are entitled to all meals, take part in all activities and sleep between 7 and 10 nights per year in School, for whom the termly fee is £1,625. The fee for Primary Flexi boarders is slightly lower. We used to admit “Day Boarders” who were simply Flexi Boarders without the entitlement to sleep in School, but we stopped admitting such a category of pupil in September 2011. We do not admit day pupils. Flexi Boarding places are very heavily oversubscribed

We have one class in Year 3 and one in Year 4, two classes in Year 5 and two in Year 6. We teach on Saturday mornings and have no compulsory exeat weekends.

Our SAT, GCSE and A level Results

Our results at level 4 or above for numeracy and literacy were 90% and 97% respectively with pleasing percentages at level 5.

The percentage achieving five GCSEs including English and Maths at grade C or above has risen from 37% in 2005 to 62% in 2011 and 69% in 2012 – against the national trend - though our percentage of A and A* grades fell in line with the national figures.

All Upper Sixth who applied to university last summer were offered a place – mainly at their first choice institution. The Sixth Form is growing very rapidly with 59 in the Upper Sixth, 75 in the Lower Sixth and we expect around 100 in the Lower Sixth in September 2013.

Children of staff

We currently have 50+ staff children on roll. All staff, teaching and non-teaching, are entitled to a 33% discount on the fees.

School Facilities

Since 2003 we have built three new Primary classrooms, converted an old gymnasium into a Performing Arts Centre, created the Bothy Music Centre which include 12 practice rooms and two classrooms, built a Cricket Pavilion and a large covered play area for wet weather use and refurbished the Swimming Pool changing rooms.

A new teaching block with two new Science Laboratories, two new general purpose classrooms and a large Dance Studio opened in June 2009 at a cost of £1.8m. A floodlit Astroturf pitch for hockey, three floodlit netball courts and a tartan athletics sprints track were also completed in Summer 2009 at a cost of £650k.

During 2009-10 we refurbished an annexe to Gatton Hall in order to create Maitland House which contains 9 bed-sits with en-suite facilities for staff. An "outdoor gymnasium" was opened in September 2010.

During 2010-11 the Dining Hall and kitchens underwent a million pound programme of refurbishment and enlargement, allowing us to serve up to one thousand lunches an hour. Six extra temporary classrooms were brought in during Summer 2011 to allow us to cope with rising pupil numbers and a further two were installed last September.

Last academic year we built a new Stable Block and Outdoor Riding School to replace existing old facilities. For Summer 2012 we created yet another extra Science Laboratory and a new Art Room.

ICT facilities are excellent. Secondary boarding houses have ICT rooms with 27 workstations which also serve as classrooms. Rank-Weston and Gatton Hall have smaller ICT rooms. All staff accommodation has at least one network access point.

Further Plans

Work has almost finished on the construction of a Fitness Centre which will be fitted out with professional quality equipment and will be large enough for 30 users at any one time.

We plan to level a large area near the Chapel in order to create more grass pitches with a floodlit First XV pitch and training ground.

When the Sixth Form has reached its planned capacity we will need a new Teaching Block with around ten classrooms.

Staffing Structure

I have been Headmaster since 2001 and am an Additional Member of HMC.

Carl Bingham, Deputy Head (Boarding) ,who joined us in 2011 manages all nine boarding houses, though Rank-Weston also falls more directly under the responsibility of Ines Salman, Assistant Head who runs the Junior School. For the last two years Dr Salman has also managed Rank-Weston but now wishes to bring in a Head of House to do this.

Making an application

Applicants must have experience of working in boarding. Sounds obvious, but last time we advertised a Head of House post we had two applications from people who had never worked in boarding schools !

All Heads of House enjoy a three-bedroom flat free of all expenses such as heating, lighting and Council Tax.

There is the facility to on our website to download a non-teaching application form, fill it in and submit as an e-mail attachment - you should be interested to know that everyone appointed in the last seven years applied electronically.

We also want a letter in which you explain clearly:

(1) What experience of boarding you bring to the post

(2) The approach that you would take in running such a large house

(3) Your ability to manage a staff team.

(4) Your ability to come with the admin and manage relationships with 130 sets of parents.

Please also note that our job adverts never have a closing date. We believe that people who are really interested in working in this successful and growing School will request information and then apply at once - and we consider applications and build a short list as soon as they are received. The selection process will run over two days - March 21st and 22nd.

Further questions ?

Please have a look around the rest of our website if you have not already done so. It is constantly being updated and improved, and it strives to give an indication of what sort of school we are.

If you have questions about any aspect of the post please e-mail me (I manage my own e-mail).

If time allows it may be possible to arrange a visit before submitting an application

Paul D Spencer Ellis

Headmaster

March 2013

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