Simon Horleston is Headteacher at St John's CofE Primary School
Can you describe your journey into teaching?
I did an RE Degree, followed by a Primary PGCE, and later a Masters in Education with supported credits.
Key steps along the way have been strong mentorship and opportunities to progress, although in different schools.
As headteacher I am part of a supportive local schools network and have also benefitted from Herts for Learning training courses and the Hertfordshire Improvement Service.
What are you looking for when recruiting new teachers?
We have a really thorough induction process for new staff, including peer support and a wellbeing offer as well as good professional development.
I am looking for enthusiasm and willingness to grow, someone with interpersonal skills as well as strong subject knowledge and the capacity to follow the school ethos in behaviour management.
I’m committed to increasing diversity too. Our vision at St John’s is ‘finding the light in ourselves and each other’ which means that we recognise and celebrate the gifts and difference in everyone, including ourselves. Naturally, this has formed a core part of our spiritual, moral, social and cultural (SMSC) offer, but after completing a curriculum audit in 2020 with the focus of identifying diversity links we quickly realised that our SMSC offer was not embedded in the curriculum to the standard that it should be. Following on from this assessment, I knew that I needed a strategic approach to addressing this curriculum concern and so started with History. If children can see the impact that others who look like them have had, then this will inspire our children to make an impact too.
Understanding the importance of children seeing themselves represented led me to thinking about our workforce - it is 100% white and it doesn’t represent our school community where 26% is made up of many different ethnicities other than white. As a result, I’m broadening my search and I’m advertising vacancies in as many different areas as possible. Before doing so, I developed an equality statement for our job adverts and I have thought carefully about the messages that are given by our website and prospectus so that it is evident that we are welcoming and inclusive.
Currently, we are working in collaboration with Herts for Learning to develop a ‘Race Equality and Anti-Racism School Self-Evaluation Framework’ which will provide a clear strategy for next steps that we will then be able to prioritise. It is essential that what we do as a school is not just embedded in the fabric of the school but becomes second nature for everyone, not just the leadership team.