Founding Deputy Headteacher

We're not looking for a Deputy Headteacher to help support our school. Instead, we're looking for someone who can help build it. We are Hillside Education, a new 36-place SEMH provision near Gotham, Nottinghamshire, opening in January 2027. This is a founding role. We're looking for someone who can help bring the values of our school to life. Do you know what those values are? No? Us neither. And that's exactly the point. We're looking for someone who is energised by the opportunity to shape them. Someone excited by the idea of co-creating a culture with colleagues and young people rather than inheriting one from somebody else. We have no inherited systems. No staff handbook that's been passed down for twenty years. No behaviour policy based on research that belongs in a museum. In fact, we still don't have a kettle. (Watch the video. It'll make sense.) https://vimeo.com/1154632916?fl=ip&fe=ec What we do have is nearly two acres of blank canvas and an opportunity to build something special. We won't pretend that it will be easy - building something from nothing is hard. There will be days when you won't know exactly what comes next — and neither will we. But if you're the kind of leader who finds that exciting rather than frightening, keep reading. Many of the young people who join Hillside will have experienced exclusion, rejection and disconnection from education. We want to change that. As we started building the school, we found ourselves asking a simple question: "If our school felt like a tribe, what would be different?" Our answer looked something like this: A place where everyone belongs. No exceptions. A place where identity comes from contribution, not status. A place where young people are known, valued and genuinely needed. A place where safety is felt through predictable relationships, calm adults and consistent routines. A place where conflict is expected, but repair is non-negotiable. If that resonates with you, then we're already speaking the