Introduction to the UTC The Energy Coast UTC is part of a new national initiative to provide very highly specialised centres for technical education and excellence for young people between the ages of 14-19. The joint specialisms of the UTC are Energy, Engineering and Construction. The UTC programme is designed to be business led and supported by a University. The sponsoring University is the University of Cumbria (UoC) and the UTC currently has four strategic employer partners Sellafield Ltd, Morgan Sindall, Iggesund and James Walker. Our sponsors, Gen2, Lakes College and the NDA, are all very strong supporters of the UTC who have demonstrated their commitment from inception. The UTC will deliver a high quality, facilitating suite of qualifications designed to maximise the skills and knowledge of our students. The aim is to produce proactive and engaged young people capable of making informed decisions about their future. The UTC can be summarised through: The Vision To empower the young people of West Cumbria. To be the best place to study in West Cumbria for young people 14-19 of all abilities looking for a future in energy, construction, engineering or related industries. The Ethos A professional, caring and productive atmosphere founded on respect, integrity and selfless commitment. Unashamedly technical, with an underlying emphasis on the STEM suite of subjects along management and vocational skill sets. The Approach To set high expectations, educate the whole person and centre their learning on a series of real world projects and activities, supported by employers, which enthuse and motivate. To treat all our students as adults from the day they arrive. The Outcome Enterprising, opportunity oriented, confident, capable, creative, open minded, young people with great qualifications and real skills who are able to think things through, solve problems and demonstrate commercial understanding in everything they do. Happy and self-actualised staff focused on continually improving themselves and the outcomes of the students. The Project Led Curriculum As part of the UTC ethos much of the learning will be centred around projects and industry informed activity, provided and supported by our strategic partners and other local employers. Teaching teams will be established that enable this multidisciplinary approach and some of the teaching will take place in more traditional frameworks outside of the projects. The Enrichment programme will also support the projects and the wider curriculum ensuring that our students develop and deploy the transferable attributes that will underpin their future employability.
The Student Attributes Key to the students employability and academic outcomes are the attributes that the UTC will develop in its students as part of all aspects of the teaching and learning process. The strong emphasis we put on these soft skills will enhance our students learning capabilities, support their growing confidence and set them apart from their peers at other institutions. By setting the UTC students apart these attributes are fundamental to us being able to meet our pledge of a place in higher education, an apprenticeship or a role in the industry for all of our students. The Building The building is currently being constructed at a location on Blackwood Road in Lillyhall, near Workington. The build comprises specialist teaching areas and classrooms as well as science labs and workshop. The building is on target to be completed during the summer of 2014, opening to students at the start of September. The specialist equipment which will all be industry standard equipment rather than education standard equipment are in the process of being procured. Our website has more information about the building. For the purposes of internet searches of the building s location the postcode is: CA14 4JW.
The Structure The managerial structure the UTC will operate seeks to achieve a leadership, managerial and operational structure built on a series of strong and interlinked teams. Line management will support the integration and operation of these teams allowing functional autonomy of individuals in the teams. Individual staff have autonomy to own their roles and personal development while acting in support of and as part of their team. When fully operational the UTC leadership team will comprise the following: Accountabilities for the UTC Senior Leadership Team (SLT): The SLT will: Create a leading edge learning environment providing students with exceptional learning opportunities through the use of current industry standard equipment, machinery, and relevant work experience drawing on the expertise available from the UTC sponsors and partners; Design challenging but supportive learning experiences for students which utilise problem solving and team working as a key driver for individual learning; Fully utilise the opportunities that are available to place ICT as a significant contributor to real time and relevant teaching and learning; Develop a people strategy that achieves Employer of Choice status, attracts, develops and manages talent across all business areas to achieve the objectives of the UTC strategic plan; Create a learning organisation which enables students and staff to study and work in a well-resourced, progressive, dynamic, healthy and safe environment; Set and monitor student achievement to ensure that all students are progressing at the appropriate rate and that UTC targets are met and exceeded; Work effectively within the business model to ensure that the UTC campus is asset efficient by utilising access to the campus and the curriculum for adults, employers and groups at evenings and weekends; Provide effective support mechanisms and appropriate interventions to ensure student safeguarding and that education and social maturity remains a priority for all students; Develop, implement and maintain the admissions procedures to the UTC which ensure compliance, transparency and fairness;
Actively promote, encourage and commit to the provision of Equality and celebration of diversity across every aspects of UTC life; Manage the financial strategy of the UTC to ensure that the budget, targets and the financial memorandum and procedures agreed by the Governors are realised and adhered to; Meet, as a minimum, all the statutory regulations and other requirements set by the local authority, funding agencies and bodies from whom the UTC receives funding; Oversee capital projects and estate matters to the benefit of students and those who work for and with the UTC within the parameters set by the Governing body; Maintain the highest standards of professional conduct and integrity for themselves and the staff of the UTC. The UTC size, student number targets and staffing levels The UTC is a sub-regional facility and we will draw students from Allerdale and Copeland. In its steady state, the UTC will be a small, highly specialised institution of 560 students aged between 14-19. The UTC is a new institution, there is no legacy institution, and it is planned that it will grow to steady state over four years from September 2014 when it will open with a target of 140 students (80 in Year 10 and 60 in Year 12). Provision has been made in the building to allow some growth on these figures but this would be subject to DfE approval. Start-up grant funding is in place to support the diseconomies of scale in the early years of operation. The expected staffing pattern for 2014-15, is currently modelled to include the Principal, Vice Principal, Business Director, 7 teaching staff, 1 SENCO, 3 administrative staff and 2 apprentices. In addition, there will be staff seconded from Gen2 and Lakes College working on the site. The staffing will grow proportionately with student numbers over the next four years. Further details of the proposed staffing structure is set out below. Managerial Structure
The managerial structure, shown, comprises three Team Leaders who will each line manage an operational division of the UTC. The Team Leader roles available in year one are : Team Leader Science and Mathematics. (This implies that the TL may have a subject background in either Mathematics or Science.) Team Leader Vocational & Technical (This implies that the TL may have a subject background in Engineering, Construction or Business.) Team Leader - Arts. (We will be seeking a TL who has English, Geography or German as their main subject background) In addition to the Principal, Vice Principal, Assistant Principal and the three Team Leaders the Energy Coast UTC is seeking to appoint teaching staff within the divisions as set in the staffing structure diagram. All roles in the UTC are open to job share applicants and we will welcome applications from people who may wish to work part time that we might be able to build into job share opportunities. Initially the enrichment and pastoral elements within the UTC will be line managed directly by the Principal. In year four, we will seek to appoint an Assistant Principal with responsibility for Enrichment and Pastoral elements. This will bring the executive team up to four people, which we feel is a sustainable level. Working in the UTC We aspire to be an employer of choice for teachers and support staff, our HR policies, remuneration scheme, the opportunities for career development and our professional ethos all actively support this goal. We expect that working at the UTC will be a challenging yet rewarding by virtue of the project led curriculum, our stretching aspirations - to be an outstanding school at our first inspection, the environment with its exceptional facilities and our world-class information technology. However, the UTC will be a small institution in year one of operation and our staffing structure and staff numbers will necessarily reflect this for the first year of operation. Inevitably this mean that we may have to blur some roles, focus on the big picture goals for our students and work flexibly in meeting our aspirations. We see the development of a strong, happy ambitious and confident team of staff as key to the UTC s success. Our focus in year one will be to develop and support an enthusiastic, creative, innovative, vibrant and above all professional atmosphere that infects the students and staff with a drive to succeed. The UTC will develop world class IT facilities in support of our key goals using several technologies that are not commonly used in UK schools. Our vision is that the UTC will live on the World Wide Web taking maximum advantage of IT in delivering its mission. This vision and our systems will support our staff, students and parents and enable our staff team to deliver inspiring lessons utilising varied and interesting delivery mechanisms.
We are committed to ensuring that all our staff are capable users of ICT and model the behaviours we expect of our students in using ICT for learning, personal development and social activities. As examples: Our virtual desktop will enable staff and students to work, as if in the UTC, from any suitably enabled internet connection. All of of the classrooms will be equipped with interactive systems, essentially large touch screens that students and staff can control for learning in small groups, student work display and as a new part of classroom teaching and learning activity for the imaginative teacher. Our technical facilities will be class leading. In association with our sponsors, architects and equipment suppliers, we will have created a technical environment that only other UTCs will be able to match. Over 90% of the equipment will be industrial standard with only a couple of items directly recognisable from school practice. When our students arrive in industry, they will be familiar with both the ethos and equipment therefore being able to add value to their employers from day one. In support of this, we are committed to ensure that our staff team can work with, operate and teach using this equipment and to this end, we have ensured high quality training will be available to support our staff in learning about and using the equipment. Business etiquette and a business like ethos will pervade the UTC and most of our student expectations are written to represent this. We have a work dress code and our sanctions and rewards for students will be more business focused and we will use the language of business wherever we can to build our students capabilities in this area. Fundamentally our staff need to model these business disciplines and behaviours for our students so, for instance, the dress code will apply equally to students and staff. We have a longer working day than most secondary schools. We start at 08:30 and continue until 17:15 on Monday to Thursday and until 16:15 on Fridays. We are expecting our staff to be on site during these hours but contact with students for lesson-based activities will be similar to those of a normal school at around 25 hrs per week. In addition, we will expect our staff to take part in, or lead, aspects of our enrichment programme. Students will complete extension work, elsewhere known as homework, during the day either as part of extended lesson times or managed self-directed learning sessions. We also have a longer working year. The Energy Coast UTC has 200 days for its students and an additional 5 days of staff development built into its constitution, as do all the other UTCs. The Governors have chosen to match the term dates of our local schools as closely as possible to minimise disruption to families and staff with children in both the UTC and other local schools. This means that our staff development time will need to be taken beyond these times and we are planning a mixture of normal day, twilight and occasional Saturday sessions for staff development. Conditions of Employment at the UTC The UTC will be a small close-knit community where young people will be able to get the best technical education possible alongside securing facilitating qualifications. We aspire to be excellent at our first Ofsted inspection likely to happen in year two of operation and this
will undoubtedly be a testing and challenging aspiration for our staff team. The Team Mentality will be at the heart of what we will do, working together supportively and collegiately will underpin the whole operation. The Governors and Principal are committed to building a friendly, professional, business like and dynamic atmosphere where the students and staff work together towards mutual goals of exceptional outcomes for students and self-actualisation for the staff. To enable this we will have a positive learning environment for staff that supports their development and leverages opportunities from our sponsors and partners. Our drive is to empower our staff, including our support team, to be excellent deliverers, facilitators, leaders and managers of learning for both the students and themselves. To ensure we have committed, capable, team oriented and enthusiastic staff these characteristics will form the core of the short-listing and interview processes. We acknowledge that staff in this category need to be rewarded and we have created our remuneration scheme to recognise this by setting our average pay point above that of other local schools. Our pay policy will also recognise individual contributions as part of the appraisal round each session. The Governors and Principal of the UTC are passionate about being a good employer and although we cannot, in the case of teachers, use the national teachers pay and conditions directly, by virtue of our longer year and longer day, we will do all we can to be a generous, friendly, compassionate and professional employer. In return, we will seek the commitment and enthusiasm of our staff for the benefit of our students.