RS 2ic Head of Department

Start date: September 2026 Closing date: Tuesday 19th May, 9.00am Shortlisting date: Tuesday 19th May Interview date: Friday 22nd May Contract: Permanent Working hours: Full time, 32.5 hours per week Salary Range: Main scale/UP scale plus TLR 2(1) £3,527 Recruitment allowance: £2,000 As Second in Department, you will be a key architect of our Religious Studies curriculum, ensuring it remains academically rigorous and deeply relevant. You will work within an ambitious team at Kingsdown, where your leadership will directly remove barriers to learning and improve the life chances of our young people. What You’ll Bring Proven Impact: A track record of delivering excellent outcomes for students in Religious Studies. Curriculum Expertise: A creative and well-researched approach to RS, with the ability to develop and refine high-quality schemes of work. Leadership Potential: The resilience to tackle challenges head-on and the desire to mentor and develop colleagues. Evidence-Informed Mindset: A commitment to using professional research to improve classroom practice. The "Why Us" Difference Professional Agency: We trust you as the expert in your domain. We provide the autonomy for you to lead in your context without micromanagement. Leadership Training: We don’t just hire leaders; we build them. You will have access to bespoke leadership training and pathways to support your career progression. Workload-Sensitive Culture: We focus on what is genuinely impactful for pupils. This means prioritising effective feedback over "performative" marking and protecting your time for high-quality CPLD. A £2,000 recruitment incentive (R&R) payment for successful candidates applying directly to RLT for this role, is payable after a qualifying period of two full terms in this role. This includes a 2-year retention period. For more details, please see the Job Description below. If you would like to know more about this opportunity, or to arrange visit or a call please contact recruitment@kingsdownschool.co.uk This role includes regulated activity relevant to children. The River Learning Trust and Kingsdown School are committed to safeguarding and promoting the welfare of all children and preventing extremism. The Trust is required to conduct a variety of checks and online searches about you as part of their recruitment process in accordance with Keeping Children Safe in Education guidance. It is an offence to apply for certain roles within schools if you are barred from engaging in regulated activity relevant to children. For all RLT Safer Recruitment Documentation candidates should click on the following link RLT Safer Recruitment Documents for Candidates Please see our website for up to date policies including our Child Protection and Behaviour Policies. This post is exempt from the Rehabilitation of Offenders Act 1974 and the amendments to the Exceptions Order 1975, 2013 and 2020. For further guidance for applicants click on