Assistant Headteacher - Pastoral and Inclusion

Summary

Ready to shape the heart of our school? Banstead Preparatory School is creating a new senior leadership role for an exceptional Assistant Headteacher – Pastoral and Inclusion.

Detail

This is a rare opportunity to become the strategic and operational lead for pastoral care, safeguarding, wellbeing, and inclusion—placing culture, safety, and belonging at the centre of school life.

As a key member of the Senior Leadership Team, you will bring together pastoral leadership and operational oversight into one influential role, ensuring every child is known, supported, and able to thrive.

This pivotal role demands a high level of strategic and operational expertise to lead and integrate pastoral care, behaviour, safeguarding, and inclusion. You will hold strategic responsibility for the wellbeing, safety, behaviour, and inclusion of all pupils, with particular oversight of the school’s most vulnerable cohorts. This places you at the heart of driving a positive school culture, ensuring high standards, and maintaining full compliance across pastoral and inclusion domains. This role will include an element of teaching for KS2.

A critical element of this role is acting as the school’s Designated Safeguarding Lead (DSL), taking lead responsibility for all safeguarding and child protection matters arising. You must maintain a culture of actively prioritising the safeguarding of children and ensure staff are suitably trained to carry out their safeguarding duties through Continuing Professional Development (CPD). Furthermore, you will evaluate data gathered from CPOMS (or other sources) to help inform interventions and strategy, and ensure that appropriate information is passed on when a child leaves the school. Beyond compliance, you will utilise your expertise in behaviour management and trauma-informed, restorative practice, working directly with teachers to identify patterns in behaviour and developing supporting strategies. You will lead on all risk management plans for children at risk, evaluating and mitigating risk associated with identified children, particularly those at risk of permanent exclusion. This role involves acting as a key adult, providing support for children who require Social, Emotional, and Mental Health (SEMH) help.

As a key leader, you will significantly contribute to the School Development Plan (SDP) and whole-school strategic priorities, leading or co-leading whole-school initiatives such as attendance strategy and equality objectives. You will oversee the collection and analysis of pastoral, behaviour, and safeguarding data to inform policy, interventions, and resource deployment. You will line-manage staff, including the pastoral team, behaviour mentors, and inclusion staff, and coordinate and deliver whole-school CPD on areas such as behaviour, safeguarding, mental health, trauma-informed practice, and inclusive pedagogy. The role requires significant stakeholder engagement, including working closely with external agencies (e.g., CAMHS, social care, Early Help teams) and engaging with parents and carers, especially during crises, complaints, or restorative meetings. We are seeking a candidate who can champion a positive inclusive culture, modelling professionalism, empathy, and high expectations.

You must possess strong strategic thinking and proven leadership to motivate, challenge, and support staff, effectively managing change and embedding whole-school systems. If you have demonstrated impact in leading pastoral, safeguarding, behaviour, or inclusion/SEND work, possess the resilience and ability to remain calm, composed, and solution-focused, and show commitment to inclusion, equality, and safeguarding every child, we encourage your application.

In return, we can offer:

· A role that places you at the heart of school life.

· The chance to work in a supportive, friendly, and lively environment.

· A rewarding position where you are valued.

We are a dynamic and growing school, full of energy and ambition, with a recent ISI report with a rare significant strength. We are committed to innovation and are always exploring ways to keep our forward-thinking curriculum fresh, challenging and relevant. We embrace change and are never afraid to shake things up to ensure we deliver the best for our children. We are ambitious about academic success while ensuring that our children’s wellbeing is at the heart of everything we do, enabling them to be free to be themselves. Our broad, exciting curriculum inspires curiosity and goes beyond the academics, we are teaching skills for life along with a broad range of core subjects. We have a positive and collaborative team who enjoy sharing ideas and initiatives both internally and within the United Learning group.

We offer exceptional facilities, including a state-of-the-art STEM centre and expansive spaces for sports, featuring a full-sized astro pitch. Our active and supportive parent community plays an integral role in our school, collaborating with us to raise funds for initiatives like new climbing frames and library enhancements.

As part of the United Learning group, Banstead Prep has a lot to offer. You will receive:

· Professional Development opportunities and access to a fantastic network of support

· Pension scheme

· Discounted school fees

· Free lunch and access to refreshments

· Access to free parking

And after 6 months you will have access to:

· Life insurance

· Health Cash Plan

· Store and Gym membership discounts

· Childcare vouchers

· Car Lease Scheme

· Designated wellbeing site

United Learning is a group of schools which aims to provide excellent education to children and young people across the country. We seek to improve the life chances of all the children and young people we serve and make it our mission to bring out ‘the best in everyone’ – pupils, staff, parents and the wider community.

The role will start on 3 September 2026. Closing date for applications is 11 January 2026. We reserve the right to close applications early.

If this sounds like a role you would be interested in, we would love to hear from you.

If you are shortlisted for the role, we will carry out an online search.

The school is committed to safeguarding and promoting the welfare of children and expects all staff to share this commitment. Applicants must be willing to undergo child protection screening appropriate to the post including checks with past employers and the Disclosure and Barring Service. We are an equal opportunities employer.

No agencies – thank you.

Documents

• Job description AH Pastoral and Inclusion 25 PDF Document