Sports GAPStudentPart timeFixed Term for one yearCandidate Information

The King’s Foundation

I am delighted that you have expressed an interest in becoming a Sports GAP Student.

I became Head of King’s Hawford in April 2021 and have been very impressed with the standard of sport coaching and performance at the school.

We benefit from a 23 acre site, with two large pitch areas.

There are 270 children from ages 2 to 11, who benefit from high quality PE instruction from our coaching team, led by our Director of Sport, Mr Sam Hodgkins.

‘We are extremely successful in our sport but that is based on a task orientated approach rather than an

outcome orientated one. We set the children targets for the fixtures that are associated with improved performance, social skills, and techniques rather than the final result. We have an impressive win rate, but the key is that every child makes progress regardless of the score-line.’

S Hodgkins

We are looking to appoint an enthusiastic Gap Year Student to our friendly team at Hawford on a temporary one year contract from September 2021. The ideal candidate will have a passion for working with children and will enjoy supporting our coaches and teachers in providing a high-quality education for our children.

If this sounds like your sort of role, then I look forward to meeting you in the weeks ahead.

Jennie PhillipsHead, King’s Hawford, Worcester

LocationWorcester is an historic, attractive, well-resourced and safe Cathedral city with good rail communications into Birmingham and London and easy access to the beautiful countryside of the Malvern Hills. The main School site is right beside the majestic Cathedral and just a few paces from all the shops and restaurants. It runs alongside the River Severn, on the other side of which are the School’s playing fields of over 50 acres.

Most children attending the School live in or near to Worcester itself but some travel from further afield by bus or train, including as far as South Birmingham, Warwickshire, South East Shropshire, Tewkesbury, Hereford and Leominster.

Home to about 100,000 inhabitants, Worcester is famous for its Three Choirs Festival, the oldest music festival in Europe, and for having one of the youngest universities in the UK, widely respected for its vocational courses. Worcester is a most desirable place in which to live.

King’s HawfordKing’s Hawford is nestled in rural north Worcester just off the A449. Its rural environment is inspiring, and is integral to everything the School does. Set in the beautiful Worcestershire countryside with views stretching to the Malvern Hills and with a canal running alongside, the historic and new buildings form a “children’s village” where the outdoor and indoor spaces seamlessly blend together to create an idyllic place to learn and play. The lush, green grounds allow the space for children to experience freedom and fresh air, play sports, and explore the great outdoors in a safe, controlled way.

“The school is just to the north of Worcester and has all the open-air feel of a rural paradise.”Good Schools Guide

History & CampusThere has been a school, or schools, on or near the current Senior School site since the 7th Century. The modern King’s is in linear descent from the monastic School which was an integral part of the Benedictine Cathedral monastery until the Dissolution in 1540. Links with the Cathedral have always been strong and remain so today. Originally a boarding and day School for boys only, the Sixth Form has been co-educational for almost 50 years and the School became fully co-ed in 1991. Boarding finished in 1999. The King’s St Alban’s site was acquired in 1953 and King’s Hawford was purchased in 1996.

The Senior School is made up of a variety of buildings displaying the very best of ancient and modern architecture. The Classics Department is housed in the medieval Edgar Tower whilst the striking design of the Michael Baker boathouse won the Royal Institute of British Architects West Midlands Award in 2013. Named after former Headmaster, Tim Keyes, The Keyes Building, which opened in June 2015, incorporates a sports hall and fitness centre, a three-storey indoor climbing wall, dance and drama studios, Sixth Form Centre and extensive teaching facilities.

King’s Hawford King’s Hawford, which has a sizeable nursery, was judged ‘outstanding’ in all categories in its last full EYFS inspection. Housed in an elegant Georgian building, the school has impressive facilities, including a sports hall (The Barn), music school, dance studio, outdoor learning facilities, double-decker library bus, heated indoor swimming pool and well-equipped specialist teaching facilities for Science, IT and Art. It is set in 23 acres of park land, which run alongside the Droitwich canal and provide excellent space for outdoor learning such as the Forest School.

“King’s Hawford is a school where children climb trees and get muddy.”Good Schools Guide

The children embrace the full forest school curriculum, working on real tasks with real tools. They start using the School’s own swimming pool from the age of 3 and from 7 they paddle canoes on the canal. They learn to be confident around water and this relevant life skills approach characterises everything about the School.

The Schools within the King’s Foundation nurture a desire to learn, enabling pupils to achieve remarkable academic success, and this is evident in their outstanding public examination results placing King’s as one of the leading independent schools in the region.

The vast majority of leavers go on to Higher Education including a large proportion to Russell Group universities. Over the past four years, 30 pupils have received offers to study at Oxford and Cambridge and every year a significant number receive offers to study Medicine, Dentistry or Veterinary Science. The School has also seen a growing interest from pupils in applying for degree apprenticeship programmes and, in 2019, one leaver secured a highly sought after degree apprenticeship with Unilever.

King’s Hawford is an exciting place to learn and develop. From embracing every academic challenge, dancing, singing and performing, learning a new language, to exploring the great outdoors, children embrace every aspect of school life.

King’s Hawford creates a learning environment that fully engages children to become active and independent participants in all lessons. They value the pride our children show in their learning tasks.

Academic LifeThe School actively encourages questioning, experimentation and independent enquiry using the children’s unbounded natural curiosity to help them seek and find answers for themselves. A broad, dynamic curriculum, and a skills afternoon introduced from Year 3, give the children the opportunity for even greater discovery. The activities are incredibly varied from cookery to producing a weekly radio show, allowing pupils to experiment and broaden their horizons.

At King’s Hawford children develop a lifelong love of learning, and enjoy each day with a determination to maximise every minute, going home exhausted but exhilarated. The School’s ethos enables children to be to children, whilst also instilling the traditional Christian values that are fundamental to our Foundation. Pupils have impeccable manners and are respectful of themselves and others. Staff celebrate individuality and encourage all children to make the most of their talents and never give up, believing that nothing is impossible. Above all when children leave King’s Hawford, it is with many treasured memories that last a lifetime.

Pastoral CareExcellent pastoral care is integral to life at all three Schools in the King’s Foundation. The quality of relationships and the focus on every pupil as an individual are key to the warm and supportive atmosphere. This caring approach extends throughout the Foundation and into its engagement with the wider community. The ISI inspectors selected empathy as a quality particularly displayed by King’s pupils.

King’s Hawford provides a strong and caring family, where the achievements of all are encouraged and celebrated. Teachers work hard to ensure that King’s Hawford children feel they are a valued part of a broad and supportive community.

The school council is run by pupils with representatives from across the School. They own and champion the school rules which focus on kindness, encouragement, celebration, honesty and pride in the School.

The house system is an important part of school life at King’s Hawford because it promotes a sense of community, belonging, and pride. Children find themselves in one of our four Houses from Reception through to Year 6. The House system offers opportunities to take on additional areas of responsibility, as well as regular House competitions throughout the year with a prize for the winning House at the end of the year.

Strong relationships with our pupils’ families are also valued and many are closely involved in the life of the School.

“Children have a real sense of belonging and develop positive self-esteem because staff are kind, reassuring and interested in them. Their efforts and achievements are acknowledged and praised by adults with many opportunities for children to share in each other’s successes.” The Good Schools Guide

Co-curricularAt the heart of the King’s approach is the desire to instil confidence in children and young people by encouraging them to explore their talents and to take seriously their responsibility to the school community and the wider world. Through a range of exciting and varied opportunities, pupils develop skills and qualities from leadership to empathy to insight and tenacity.

King’s Hawford believes in giving children many of opportunities. To ensure that they are eager and willing to try things out, the co-curricular programme is extensive, with over 30 clubs such as construction, karate, string group, radio club, sewing, musical theatre, cartoon drawing and chess. This is in addition to the wide variety of sports on offer after School, including athletics, rugby, football, hockey, netball, cricket, swimming, rounders, and tennis.

The arts play a central role in life at King’s Hawford, with all pupils enjoying music, art, drama, and dance

as part of the curriculum with specialist music lessons also available. The School has an orchestra and there is also a wind band, a guitar group, a jazz band, as well as a junior and senior choir. All children are taught to read music by the time they leave. They all learn an instrument, with over 65% taking private instrumental music lessons and over 80 pupils sing in the School choir that takes part in local festivals as well as school events.

Regular informal concerts take place throughout the school year and these are supplemented by a Summer Concert. All children are involved in the school’s drama provision, with separate productions for Years 5 and 6, and Years 3 and 4. Younger children take part in Christmas productions each year.

At King’s Hawford, school life is not defined by regular hours. Education takes place before, during and after school to make sure that no opportunity to expand children’s minds is lost.

CommunityKing’s Hawford is often described as “one big happy family” and the School works very hard to ensure that everyone is welcome from day one in a safe, secure and nurturing environment.

The School values children for who they are and champions working together to create an optimistic, caring and successful community. Every child is treated as an individual. Strong relationships with pupils’ families are forged and they are closely involved in the life of the School. Regular events for children, parents and grandparents create a fantastic family atmosphere and a powerful sense of belonging.

Alongside this King’s Hawford has an active parent group, organising social events and raising money for charity and the School. Popular events include the Christmas Fayre, the Summer Ball, Race and Quiz Nights and the Fireworks Extravaganza Nights.

Community engagement and helping local charities are key elements in the life of pupils at all three King’s Schools. There is a number of well-established partnerships with local maintained schools and activities have included school quizzes, Maths challenges and workshops in music, sports and drama. Local schools, charities and community groups use the School facilities. Every year pupils are involved in a wide range of fundraising activities for local and national charities.

Everyone who has ever been involved with King’s, whether as a pupil, parent, member of staff or friend, is a lifelong member of the community. The alumni association is called The Old Vigornian Club, named after the Latin word for Worcester, ‘Vigornia’. There are events throughout the year and Old Vigornians are involved in careers advice and networking as well as important fundraising work. The King’s Community is overseen by the School’s Foundation Development and Alumni Relations Team.

Sport atKing’s HawfordSport plays a major role in School life at King's Hawford. Children in years 3 to 6 enjoy three and a half hours per week of timetabled sport in addition to after school clubs and activities. Children in Kindergarten, Reception, Year 1 and 2 benefit from separate swimming, PE and Games sessions each week.

The key focus of sport at King's Hawford is opportunity and enjoyment. All children are encouraged to make progress in all areas of sport including performance, teamwork, co-operation

decision making and communication. The key sports played at Hawford are rugby, hockey, football, netball, cricket, swimming and athletics. These are supplemented by a range of other activities within PE lessons such as gymnastics and trampolining.

The School regularly competes in local, regional and national sporting events in both team and individual events and celebrates the achievements and successes of pupils.

Duties: • To assist in the delivery of Physical Education and

Games lessons by reinforcing teaching points,recording results and preparing equipment.

• To adhere to Health & Safety policies andprocedures in order to ensure a safe, effective, childfriendly environment in all lessons and activities.

• To be prompt to lessons wearing the appropriatesporting attire.

• To assist with co-curricular activities.

• To uphold the King’s School’s reputation andsporting ethos.

• To ensure all pupils’ experience is a positive andenjoyable one.

Skills required: • Ability to establish good working relationships

with colleagues and young people.

• Readiness to take own initiative.

• Ability to work successfully both independentlyand as part of a team.

• Enthusiasm and a passion for one or more sports.

• The ability to communicate clearly and confidently.

• Determination to achieve high standards and toencourage others to do so.

• The desire to make the very most of thisopportunity for personal development.

• The ability to inspire pupils to take part in sportand to work as a team.

• Maintain the equipment for the PE and Gamesprogrammes.

• Play a role within the working school day toinclude assisting in PE lessons when required.

Hours: part time 25 hours per week plus occasional fixtures.

King’s HawfordSports Department

• We promote the values of mutual respect andintegrity at every level in the Foundation, and weare an equal opportunities employer.

• You will be joining a highly successful, well-resourced School with a warm welcomingatmosphere and a positive outlook.

• Remuneration - A competitive salary that willbe commensurate with the importance of thepost and with the experience and qualities of thesuccessful candidate.

• Pension Scheme - King’s offers an enhancedDefined Contribution Pension Scheme for supportstaff.

• School Fees - There is a generous 50% feeremission for children of employees who attendSchools in the King’s Foundation (pro-rata for parttime staff).

• Development – You can look forward to agenuinely rewarding role as well as careerdevelopment and support for professional studies,if appropriate. Whatever the role we offer excellenttraining and development. We are also committedto promoting from within whenever we can, givingthe chance to build a great future at King’s.

• Wellbeing - Employees have access to the School’soutstanding sports facilities including the gym andswimming pool at agreed times.

• Private Medical Insurance – staff are able topurchase private medical insurance through theschool in order to benefit from group premiumrates.

• Lunch is provided for employees during the schoolday.

• Flu vaccination is offered.

• Yoga and Pilates classes available.

• Use of School library books and DVD’s.

• Complimentary tickets offered for some localevents i.e. sports matches, theatre tickets.

• Free access to Employee Assistance Programme.

Benefits of working at the King’s Foundation

All applications will be acknowledged. The closing date for this post is Monday 5th July. All applicants will be notified after the closing date whether or not they have been invited to an interview. Successful applicants will be advised of the date and time of the interview. References will normally be taken up prior to interview and candidates should be aware that referees will be asked to comment on a candidate’s disciplinary record and whether or not the candidate has been subject to any child protection concerns. Qualification certificates (originals not copies) will be required at interview, as will proof of identity.

Candidates unsuccessful at interview will receive written notification.

The School is required to ensure that the successful candidate is checked by the Disclosure and Barring Service. Details of the School’s policies on safeguarding and promoting the welfare of children as well as equal opportunities are available on request. References will be obtained and verified prior to the appointment being confirmed.

How to apply Candidates should complete the application form available on the careers page of the School website www.ksw.org.uk/careers and email it to Laura Crowe at lcrowe@ksw.org.uk together, with a covering letter, detailing your relevant experience, how you would intend to meet the challenges of the role and the particular qualities and strengths which you would hope to bring to the post.

Please also include a separate CV in addition to your application form.

Closing date for applications:

Interview dates:

Start date:

Monday 5th July

To be confirmed

September 2021

Application Process