SCHOOL bosses in charge of a poor performing school are offering a salary of up to £107,000 to a new principal nearly a year after teachers went on strike.
The Academies Enterprise Trust is looking to parachute a new headteacher into Tendring Technology College, which has campuses in Frinton and Thorpe-le-Soken.
As part of the role, described as a “once in a lifetime opportunity”, the successful applicant will “play a critical role in leading the school on a journey to excellence”.
According to the job advert, the lucky candidate will also receive an eye-watering pay packet of between £92,000 and £107,000 a year and a relocation package.
Alongside head of school Teri-Leigh Jones and executive principal Graeme Napier, they will be responsible for leading the school back into Ofsted’s good books.
The advert reads: “The successful candidate will be a driven and inspirational leader with a proven track record of whole-school improvement.
“The position would suit an existing principal looking for their next challenge and the opportunity to lead a larger school or a very experienced school leader.
“This headship presents an exciting opportunity to transform a school with huge potential and lead it back to excellence.”
The hunt for a new principal comes just two months after Tendring Technology College was rated Inadequate by Ofsted inspectors.
Among other problems, the report suggested pupils did not feel safe and homophobic language is used at an alarming rate in the school.
Girl students even told inspectors not enough is done to prevent boys from using abusive language towards them or acting in an over-sexualised manner.
According to the inspectorate a “significant proportion” of staff also feel senior leaders do not support them well enough with managing serious misbehaviour.
Although disappointed, trust bosses acknowledged “improvements needed to be made” but stressed work was already underway to turn the school around.
The move to recruit a new principal also follows strike action take last year by school workers who feared a staffing restructure and job cuts.
The trust admitted reducing the teacher headcount by four per cent, but said the school was “significantly overly staffed” compared to similar schools.
A spokeswoman for the trust said: "We are looking forward to appointing a permanent Principal to Tendring Technology College over the coming weeks - we follow national pay scales as all schools do.
"Working closely with the Executive Principal, this individual will play a central role as we continue to focus on resetting our relationship with parents and the wider community as part of our wider programme of improving TTC.
"We want parents and the community to have an active voice in the recruitment process so we are putting in place a community panel that will have the opportunity to meet candidates and to feed in their views.”
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