Head of Colfe's School September 2025
Colfe's School
Greenwich
- Salary:
- Competitive
- Job type:
- Full Time, Permanent
- Start date:
- September 2025
- Apply by:
- 20 May 2024
Job overview
Full time/Permanent Position
The Governing Body of Colfe’s School seeks to appoint an outstanding individual to the position of Head. The vacancy arises upon the retirement of Mr Richard Russell after twenty years’ distinguished service.
Colfe’s School is a highly successful independent co-educational day school located in Greenwich, to the south-east of London. It is a historic institution which has been governed by The Leathersellers’ Company for over 370 years. It educates pupils aged 3 to 18 across both Junior and Senior Schools. The School currently has around 1300 pupils, including 430 in the Junior School. It operates within a competitive local market containing leading state and independent schools. The School offers first-class teaching on a well-resourced campus (housing both the Junior and Senior Schools), which leads to excellence in public examination outcomes, pastoral care and the co-curricular programme. Following the impressive judgements reported by the Independent Schools’ Inspectorate in September 2023, the new Head will inherit a School that is conspicuously successful, highly subscribed and very well regarded. Nevertheless, the Governors remain ambitious for it to continue its all-round development and to be flexible and agile in shaping its provision for the needs of 21st Century families.
This is a tremendous opportunity for a current or aspiring Head to lead a very special school with a demonstrably unique and strong personality. The Governors are looking for a leader who combines personal warmth with a strategic mindset, to help the School to evolve culturally, educationally and technologically over the coming decade, whilst retaining its strong ethos. The person must lead with a high degree of emotional intelligence to establish an authentic connection with pupils, parents, staff and Governors.
The new Head will shape and drive the School’s future, with their primary challenge being to maintain its recent upward trajectory through the likely external economic, societal and political challenges of the coming years. They will be an articulate advocate for Colfe’s, defining it clearly amongst its competitors, in the local community and in the wider educational sphere. It will be critical in doing this to retain and embrace the caring and inclusive culture of its community.
Further information about the role and details of how to apply can be found at: www.rsacademics.com
Interested candidates are warmly invited to have an initial, confidential conversation with key members of the team at RSAcademics who are handling this appointment:
Michael Stephens, Head of Senior School Search: MichaelStephens@rsacademics.com
Bob Griffin, Senior Advisor: BobGriffin@rsacademics.com
Claire Oulton, Head of Leadership Appointments, UK: ClaireOulton@rsacademics.com
The deadline for receipt of applications is 10.00am (UK) on Monday 20 May 2024.
- Colfe’s School is an equal opportunities employer, and therefore encourage candidates to apply irrespective of age, disability, marriage or civil partnership status, pregnancy or maternity, race, religion and belief, gender identity, sex or sexual orientation.
- Colfe’s School is committed to safeguarding and promoting the welfare of children and young people and expects all staff and volunteers to share this commitment. This post is subject to enhanced DBS and other checks in line with safer recruitment best practice. This post is exempt from the Rehabilitation of Offenders Act 1974 and the amendments to the Exceptions Order 1975, 2013 and 2020.
- The safeguarding responsibilities of this post are detailed in the candidate information brochure.
- RSAcademics is committed to safeguarding and promoting the welfare of children and young people and to promoting diversity and inclusion in schools.
Attached documents
About Colfe's School
THE AIMS OF THE SCHOOL
At Colfe's we aim to:
• promote excellence in all areas and to develop each pupil’s abilities and character to the full;
• provide innovative academic teaching which adds value and fosters learning and scholarship of the highest quality together with a wide range of cultural, sporting and extra-curricular activities;
• nurture an awareness of spiritual and moral values amongst our pupils in accordance with the Christian principles of our Founder, Abraham Colfe;
• maintain a balanced community of children from varied backgrounds within the context of an academically selective school;
• promote a purposeful and disciplined atmosphere in which boys and girls are encouraged to achieve their full potential, staff can find vocational fulfilment in their careers and all can use their talents for the greater good of the community and society as a whole.
Colfe’s School
Colfe’s is one of London’s oldest schools. It can be traced back to the 15th century but took its name from Abraham Colfe, Vicar of Lewisham, who re-founded the school in 1652. In his will, he entrusted the care of the school to the Leathersellers’ City Livery Company, which governs the school to this day.
In 1977 the school became independent; after 25 years as a voluntary aided boys’ grammar school. For over twenty years now, Colfe’s has been co-educational, with roughly equal numbers of boys and girls: over 1,250 pupils in all, from ages three to 18. The Leathersellers’ Scholarship programme enables us to select a number of scholars each year on fully-funded bursaries for direct entry to the Sixth Form. In so doing we draw on strong working relationships with a number of local comprehensive schools in two of London’s most deprived boroughs: 10% of pupils in a typical sixth form year group qualify for free school meals.
Colfe’s former site in Lewisham was destroyed in the Second World War. In 1963 the school moved to its present location in South East London. All parts of the school from Nursery to Sixth Form share the site. The facilities are excellent: the school has an abundance of green space on site as well as a performing arts centre, sports centre with full-size swimming pool, two additional extensive sports grounds and a dedicated forest school for younger pupils nearby.
Entrance is selective and academic standards are high, with more than 88.9% of A levels graded A*-B last year. More than 68% of pupils achieved GCSE grades 9-7, with 20% receiving the highest grade 9 - well above the national average. Pupils regularly gain places on the most competitive courses at university, including Oxford and Cambridge and Russell Group universities such as Bristol, Durham, Warwick and Leeds to study a variety of subjects from English, Economics and Maths to Medicine and Music. Sport, music and drama are strong and all staff are expected to engage with the thriving extra-curricular programme.
Colfe’s is proud of its long history but not burdened or defined by it. It is very much a school of the present day. The teachers are relaxed (without being casual) and professional (without being stuffy). The culture is one in which pupils are encouraged to respect one another and to learn from each other. Colfe’s doesn’t try to force pupils into a single mould – there is no recognisable ‘Colfe’s type of pupil’. They are lively and willing to have a go.
Locally and nationally the school enjoys a strong and growing reputation for all-round quality and innovation.
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