Promotions, leavers and joiners

Fielding is fully staffed with permanent, qualified teachers ready for the start of the new school year. Recruitment conditions are increasingly challenging. 

Teacher leavers

At the end of this school year, Miss Stabler, Mrs Hopkins, Miss Neil-Smith, Mr Perez-Diaz, Mr Taraboulsi and Miss Goel leave Fielding:

• Miss Stabler, Assistant Head teacher, moves to work as an Assistant Head teacher in a school closer to her home for a better mum-work-life balance with her son. She has worked at Fielding for 16 years, joining as a newly qualified teacher, gaining promotions reflecting her excellence. Laura has been a key part of the school's success.
• Mrs Hopkins, also moves to work in a school closer to her home for a better mum-work-life balance. Claire has worked at Fielding for 11 years. She is looking forward to a much shorter commute and more time with her daughters.
• Miss Neil-Smith, specialist music teacher, moves to work part-time as a music teacher in a school closer to her home. Maria is looking forward to a better work-life balance with her daughter.
• Mr Perez-Diaz gains a promotion to year leader and follows his passion to be a specialist PE teacher in another school. We wish Chris every success.
• Mr Taraboulsi leaves to gain more experience in another school.
• Miss Goel leaves to gain more experience in another school.

We wish them all well in the next step of their career and life plans.

Promotions

• Miss Whaley becomes Assistant Head teacher and Upper Phase (years 5 & 6) Leader.
• Mr Bloomfield and Mr Thomas become Year Leaders. Mr Thomas is covering Miss Allen's maternity leave as year leader.
• Mr Thomas also becomes Maths Leader, covering Mrs Patel's maternity leave.

Congratulations to Miss Whaley, Mr Bloomfield and Mr Thomas who were selected through a competitive process of very strong internal candidates.

Teacher changes

• Miss Tsoukala returns from maternity leave in July, ready for the new school year.
• Miss Allen is on maternity leave having given birth to a daughter. Mum and baby are very well.
• Mrs Patel expects to start her maternity leave early in September and will not be allocated to teach a class.
• Mr Smith and Miss Nur become permanent teachers, giving us stability covering different periods of known maternity leave through to September 2024.

Teacher joiners

Four experienced teachers and three teachers at the start of their career join us:

• Dani Lynch becomes our music specialist teacher. Ms Lynch is a very experienced class teacher and keen musician. She joins to follow her passion for music education.
• Raúl Torres is an experienced teacher joining us to gain more experience and develop his career. Dr Torres has taught at his last school for around 3 years.
• Sean Monks is an experienced teacher joining us to develop his career. Mr Monks lives locally and has previously also worked overseas.
• Amelia Clough is an experienced mainstream primary school teacher. She joins us as our third teacher in the ARP. Miss Clough has an excellent track record teaching pupils with special educational needs (SEND) and now wants to specialise teaching SEND in our ARP. All 3 classes in the ARP have specialist teachers of SEND.
• Daisy Clark, Madeline Mortland and Fardosa Ali join us at the start of their teaching careers. Ms Clark and Miss Mortland were both trainee teachers at Fielding. Miss Ali has substantial school experience as a graduate teacher trainee. 

Teachers and classes

We think about lots of different things when allocating teachers to year groups and classes to teachers. All senior staff, including Mrs Chadwick (SENDCo) share their views. These factors include:

• some teachers staying in the same age group so that they share strong, first-hand subject knowledge about the curriculum;
• some teachers moving up with the age group so that they know precisely what pupils have and have not covered in the curriculum the year before;
• teachers, especially at the early part of their career, staying in the same age group for at least 2 years to consolidate and develop their experience;
• teachers moving between age groups to increase their breadth of subject knowledge and experience;
• giving each class a range of different teachers, which can include alternating between a less experienced teacher one year followed by a more experienced teacher the next year;
• matching the specific needs of each class to the professional knowledge and skills of each teacher;
• if there has been any change in teacher mid-year, doing everything we can to reduce the risk of turbulence the next year;
• considering additional responsibilities such as Assistant Head teacher, Year Leader, subject leader or Early Career Teacher where teachers are released to work away from their class.