Associate Assistant Head – Assessment and Data
Closing date for applications: Monday 18 May 2026
Employer: Cumbria Education Trust
Full Time, Permanent
Leadership Pay Range £57,137 to £63,070 Pro Rata 1.0 FTE (L5plus Depending on experience). Please note there is also a teaching responsibility with this role.
Start Date: 1st September 2026
We are a dedicated and inclusive special educational needs school committed to providing outstanding education and care for pupils with a diverse range of needs. Our nurturing environment, skilled staff team, and strong community ethos enables every learner to thrive, achieve, and develop independence.
We are seeking an inspirational and experienced leader to join our senior leadership team as an Associate Assistant Headteacher. This is a key role supporting the strategic direction of the school while ensuring the highest standards of teaching, learning, and pastoral care for our pupils.
The successful candidate will work closely with the Headteacher and senior leaders to drive school improvement, champion inclusive practice, and support staff development across the school.
Key Responsibilities
- School wide assessment systems, data processes, quality assurance, statutory compliance, moderation, and supporting staff to use assessment effectively to improve outcomes
- Lead, refine and quality assure the school’s assessment systems to ensure they are robust, purposeful and aligned to the school curriculum
- Ensure assessment practice is accurate, consistent, and meaningful, supporting teachers to use assessment to improve teaching, inform planning and raise outcomes
- Maintain compliance with statutory assessment requirements, ensuring all deadlines, submissions and processes are met
- Lead whole school approaches to progress tracking, data analysis, target setting and moderation, ensuring that leaders and teachers have clear, timely information to drive improvement
- Ensure assessment supports the progress of all learners in all pathways (pre formal, informal, semi formal, formal)
- Lead on the development, implementation and evaluation of the whole school assessment strategy, ensuring alignment with curriculum design and school improvement priorities
- Maintain up to date knowledge of best practice, qualifications, assessment frameworks and relevant guidance
- Ensure assessment systems support clear progression, equality of access and meaningful reporting to stakeholders
- Oversee whole school data collection cycles
- Produce clear, purposeful data reports for SLT, governors and external reviewers
- Analyse data to identify patterns, gaps and areas for intervention at whole school, phase and curriculum block level
- Support staff to understand and use data to refine teaching and intervention
- Lead robust moderation processes within school and across external networks to ensure accuracy, consistency and reliability of judgments
- Provide guidance, modelling and feedback to staff on assessment accuracy
- Ensure staff are using the school’s assessment frameworks, rubrics and tools correctly
- Deliver training and professional development on assessment for learning, progress measures, effective feedback and pathway specific assessment approaches
- Work with teachers to embed high-quality formative assessment practices that inform planning and improve classroom learning
- Provide individual and group support to staff who need help with assessment processes, accuracy or workload management
- Ensure the school meets all statutory responsibilities where relevant, including EYFS Profile, Phonics Screening (where applicable), Multiplication Check (mainstream KS2), End of Key Stage assessments (mainstream), Required submissions for specialist pathways / local authority reporting
- Liaise with exam officers, moderators, local authorities and external agencies as required
- Work closely with pathway leads, SENCO, pastoral leads and therapy teams to ensure assessment reflects pupils’ holistic needs
- Support leaders with evaluating progress within their areas
- Contribute to pupil progress meetings, identifying pupils at risk of underachievement and appropriate interventions
- Maintain efficient assessment systems (digital platforms, trackers, reporting tools)
- Ensure data is stored and handled securely in line with GDPR
- Develop and refine user friendly tools that minimise workload while maximising insight
- Support staff with accessible and meaningful reporting to parents/carers
- Provide clear assessment information to governors, trust partners, Ofsted and external professionals
- Contribute to the development of pupil centred progress evidence (communication milestones, engagement, independence skills)
We Are Looking For Someone Who
- Holds Qualified Teacher Status (QTS)
- Has leadership experience
- Is passionate about education
- Has experience working within a special school or specialist provision
- Has strong knowledge of the SEND Code of Practice
- Has excellent communication and organisational skills
- Is passionate about inclusion and improving outcomes for vulnerable learners
Please note the job description is not necessarily a comprehensive definition of the post. It will be reviewed annually.
The successful applicant will be subject to an enhanced DBS check and appropriate pre-employment checks.
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