Walderslade Girls' School

My primary role in school is to lead on curriculum development, innovation and delivery. This encompasses curriculum planning and review, quality assurance, school self-evaluation, oversight and analysis of examination results and the management of academic information. I am responsible for the day to day organisation and timetabling and I deputise for the Headteacher as required.

In addition to this I line manage the delivery of ICT, mathematics and the provision of Additional Educational Needs.

My own academic interests lie within science where I am a teacher of A level biology. I am also keen on photography and currently act as the school photographer, taking pictures for internal display and for external publication.

for Technology and came to the school in the late eighties to design an area for the teaching of the new subject and develop the growth of it jointly with what is now Greenacre Boys.

In those early days of my career I had been part of a small team of technologists who designed a building for Swadelands,  Lenham which  cost a million pounds. This then lead to me lecturing at both University , College  London and The Royal Society  ,on the topic of ‘ the importance of resourcing technology education.’

Two years later, I was invited to apply for the post of Head of Middle School which included responsibility for the academic and pastoral support of year 8 and Year 9. I fulfilled this role until becoming a Senior teacher then later Assistant Head Teacher.

My responsibilities as Assistant Head Teacher include; the pastoral care of the teachers and support staff; the staff appraisal and records system and for ensuring that all staff are recruited following the government’s ‘safer recruitment procedures’.  As part of my role, I too ensure that classes are covered when teachers are absent.

Continuous professional  development of all teaching and support staff is of  vital importance to ensure that  our young people  benefit  from  working with knowledgeable  well informed teachers and support staff who themselves understand the importance of life- long learning ;  I have trained and continue to train  teachers from the early stages of pre- qualified teacher status ( QTS ) through to the various stages of development and promotion to Assistant Head Teacher level. The majority of serving teachers in this school have been trained through the school and their excellent success record can be measured by the year on year improvements in school examination results.

The election and management of the school council is of particular importance to me and is part of my work. The ‘student’ voice is taken very seriously here at Walderslade Girls’ and it is always a delight to see our elected representatives from all ages in the school discuss and debate ideas to move the school forward. Last summer representatives from our council fulfilled a vital  role  in the process to select a new Head Teacher .  We were  very proud of them in the manner in which they conducted themselves during  this important  process;  they produced a challenging set of questions and  in turn  interviewed each candidate, they then discussed their views  with the school governors who had arranged  the interview process.

Ensuring that school visits procedures is  undertaken correctly with  everybody’s safety being of paramount  consideration  is  also part of my role as is, on a day to day basis ,  working  closely with the Heads of Departments and the staff  of Modern Foreign Languages, Vocational Courses  and Science,  to ensure that their subject areas are supported enabling  them to progress and develop their subject areas in order to meet changing demands.

Hazel Martin-Boucher

so that I could take up a supply teacher post as a teacher of English. I became a permanent member of staff in September 1986. When the then Head of English resigned in the summer of 1990 I was appointed as Acting Head of Department and was confirmed in February1991.

Since then I have been Head of Year for Years 7 and 8, KS3 Manager, Literacy Coordinator, Assessment and Reporting Manager, Primary School Liaison Officer and Publicity Officer. I became a Senior teacher before being appointed to my present role as an Assistant Headteacher.

In addition to these roles I have taken the lead in ensuring that the school has achieved the Basic Skills Quality Mark four times and the Inclusive Schools Quality Mark twice. I have line managed the English, maths, science, modern languages, history and AENCO departments. Currently I am line manager for Business Studies and RE.

In my pastoral role I am the Designated Coordinator for Child Protection and the Designated Coordinator for Looked After Children. I am very concerned that girls receive support and help when they need it. To this end I am always pleased to meet with parents and carers to help find ways of ensuring this happens.

I was asked to become Literacy Coordinator. In 2005 I became a senior teacher and was joint acting head of Walderslade Joint 6th Form for a year prior to being made an Assistant Headteacher in 2006.

My initial role as Assistant Headteacher was to oversee the specialist school status which included working closely with the English, RE and Expressive Arts Department. I now line manage the English and Literacy across the Curriculum and Expressive Arts Department. Over the years I have had a particular interest in teaching and learning and have been involved in supporting students who are the most able. I have also been very much involved in training and mentoring staff.

More recently I have been instrumental in creating our school publication, the “Hearts of Walderslade” and feel very strongly about promoting the wonderful achievements of all students within the school to the community.

I am the link person with the community and have been very involved with community projects. I also liaise with primary schools with developing links between curricular subjects. My most recent responsibility is for school marketing, an area that I am very much looking forward to carrying out.

and exciting curriculum subject into the school. Over the years I have enjoyed many successes, such as securing Healthy Schools Status and achieving the Investors in Careers quality mark. I have since undertaken a number of other roles and additional pastoral responsibilities leading up to my appointment as Assistant Headteacher in 2007.

As Assistant Headteacher my responsibilities include leading on Alternative Provision, Attendance and Enterprise and Work Related Learning across the curriculum. I am very proud to have led the school to achieve the OFSTED grade of outstanding in all of these areas and to be a member of several task forces for the local authority.

I currently line manage three departments, PE, Geography and History. My passion is Careers Education and Work Related Learning and I am fully committed to helping young people achieve their career aspirations and determined to ensure that full advantage is taken of opportunities to develop and improve employability skills among young people.

After being asked to become Head of our Joint Sixth Form I was delighted as it in an area of education which supplies young people with the skills they need to find their purpose and place in life.

Throughout the last few years we have seen the Sixth Form go from strength to strength, we are focused on catering for the needs of all our pupils and support them to find the right path in life. This is not only curriculum focused, but also about supporting students through enrichment programmes and UCAS applications.

The Joint Sixth Form is spread over the two sites of Walderslade and Greenacre, I work alongside Kerri McArdle who also assists in the leadership and management of the sixth form. We are a strong team and work to secure students grades by regularly liaising with all subject staff, mentors and form tutors who all work in collaboration with our Sixth Form Team.

Another side to my role is to look at Year 11 recruitment; this requires interviews with Year 11 students regarding their future options. This process starts early in Year 11 working closely with the pupil progress manager to support those students who are looking to progress further. As A-Levels are very different to GCSE’s we like to provide students with other opportunities for personal development. This can be from work experience, working as a Study Buddy in classrooms or helping out with many of the activities we offer in the Sixth Form.

Recently we have introduced charity events such as a Macmillan Coffee Morning with a cake sale, a Sixth Form Charity Week, expressive arts shows, outside speakers, army days and a sports day. All of these activities contribute to the students overall development of life skills and allow them to take a different type of responsibility than that which they had previously experienced.

A very rewarding role I have as well is in supporting students onto the next stage of their careers, we have sessions with the students on CV writing, application forms and UCAS references. We endeavour to support the students in whatever path they are choosing to follow, we do have an increasing amount of students who choose to continue on to further education which is very positive. All of these can be a chance to see how our students have grown as young people as we set them off onto their future paths.