Are you considering a career as a Biology Teacher?

Would you like to train on the job and receive a tax-free bursary during your training year?

Swindon Academy is looking to appoint a highly motivated and ambitious colleague to the role as United Teacher - Biology.

Vacancy: Trainee Teacher - Biology

Location: Swindon

Don’t miss the opportunity to complete your PGCE at the top school for progress at GCSE in Swindon. This training post attracts a bursary of £20,000. You can also apply for a maintenance loan to help with living costs. To check eligibility criteria, please visit the Get Into Teaching website.

Swindon Academy is part of United Learning, the biggest Multi-Academy Trust in the UK. With a progress 8 score of 0.67 in 2023, Swindon Academy has been the top Secondary school in Swindon for GCSE progress since 2016 and became the top school for attainment in Swindon for GCSE in 2022.

Located in the North of Swindon, we are within commuting distance of Bristol, Bath, Oxford and Reading and the beautiful surrounding Cotswolds Hills. The school boasts superb facilities, a spectacular building and a genuine commitment to ensuring that the Academy is a great place for pupils to come and learn and staff to come and teach.

United Teaching is our Initial Teacher Training scheme and we can offer you more than any single school. Training while you teach, you will learn from the best and share our expertise nationwide. With support from mentors and tutors across the Group, it all adds up to the best start for our children, and your career. Because here, teacher training is a path to senior leadership roles across the country.

United Teaching National SCITT is a bespoke teacher training course, run in partnership with a top university, who award the Post Graduate Certificate in Education (PGCE). The course starts with a two-week ‘summer school’ in August. You will spend your academic year at Swindon Academy with additional training one afternoon each week. You will complete a second placement at the partner Cluster School and attend up to three ‘conferences’. Assessment will continue throughout the course, based on your classroom experience and achievement measured against Teaching Standards, while your academic study will comprise of two academic assignments.

We are looking to appoint someone who:

• is truly committed to making a difference to the life-chances of students
• has been awarded or are on track to achieve a 2:1 Degree (Negotiable in exceptional cases
• is passionate about their subject
• is highly-organised
• is committed to working as part of a team
• is committed to continuous improvement
• can demonstrate excellent organisational and inter-personal skills and the ability to contribute to a team
• has experience working with children (not essential)

Swindon Academy can offer you:

• the opportunity to work in the best school in Swindon
• a strong whole-school team of hardworking, supportive and friendly colleagues
• a culture and ethos of sky-high expectations
• a rigorous whole-school behaviour system that allows teachers and pupils to benefit from disruption-free learning.
• a fully resourced curriculum with centralised, shared units of work and resources.
• whole-class feedback marking policies and retrieval practice strategies aimed at supporting the work-life balance of teachers.
• a dedicated team of non-teaching pastoral and SEN staff who work with teachers to support pupils
• a research driven (no fad) in-house professional development program utilising best practice and evidence-based teaching and learning initiatives.
• a coaching culture, where every teacher is supported to develop professionally
• access to the best professional development bespoke to all levels of leadership
• a ‘hands-on’ and committed Senior Leadership Team, completely determined to create an environment in which teachers can get on with their core role: delivering excellent lessons.
• huge personal satisfaction in your work as a teacher

Please note that if you have qualifications from outside the UK, you’ll need to show that they’re the same standard as UK GCSEs and a UK bachelor’s degree. You can get a statement of comparability from UK ENIC to show the standard of your qualifications.

Finding out more

If you are looking for the next step in your career, and would like to find out more, please email Karen Wright at (Interim Principal). We will arrange an informal phone call to talk about the role or a visit.