Deputy Head of Senior School (Academic)

Queen Elizabeth s School, Dubai Sports City

Academic Leadership and Strategy

• Lead the academic strategy for the Senior School, ensuring alignment with the overarching mission of Queen Elizabeth s Global Schools and the heritage of Queen Elizabeth s School, Barnet, while maintaining a clear focus on excellence, innovation, and global relevance.
• Drive a culture of high academic expectations and continuous improvement, ensuring all students, with particular attention to Emirati student, make strong progress and achieve ambitious outcomes across all subjects.
• Support delivery of the QE Futures and QE Connect programmes, ensuring they are embedded within the academic curriculum and support future-focused, real-world learning experiences.
• Oversee curriculum design and implementation from Key Stage 3 onwards, ensuring depth, balance, and seamless progression into external examination courses.
• Lead the academic preparation for and delivery of international examinations, ensuring students are exceptionally well-prepared and supported to achieve at the highest levels.
• Promote pedagogical excellence and innovation across departments, integrating evidence-based teaching, educational technology, and global best practices.

Curriculum and Assessment

• Ensure the curriculum is broad, balanced, and fully compliant with British educational expectations and local regulatory frameworks, including the effective delivery of all mandatory UAE subjects, Arabic, Islamic Education, Moral Education, and UAE Social Studies.
• Work closely with subject leaders to ensure that UAE statutory subjects meet or exceed KHDA and MOE standards, while remaining intellectually engaging and culturally respectful.
• Develop and refine a robust assessment and tracking framework that ensures early identification of student needs and supports personalised academic pathways.
• Lead on differentiated and inclusive teaching strategies to challenge all learners, from those requiring additional support to those with advanced academic potential.
• Ensure academic reporting to parents is timely, personalised, and aligned with the school s commitment to transparency and excellence.

Staff Leadership and Development

• Provide inspirational leadership to Heads of Department and Year Leaders, ensuring consistency in curriculum implementation, teaching quality, and student outcomes.
• Conduct regular performance reviews and lesson observations, offering developmental feedback and setting clear, ambitious goals for academic staff.
• Design and lead a strategic professional development programme that fosters subject expertise, collaborative practice, and reflective teaching.
• Promote a professional culture of scholarship and curiosity, encouraging staff to share innovative practices and contribute to the academic discourse within the school and beyond.

Student Achievement and Support

• Lead and oversee intervention programmes that ensure no student is left behind, with targeted strategies to support student achievement and address any learning gaps.
• Collaborate with the Assistant Head, Pastoral and Inclusion leaders to ensure that academic provision is integrated with the wider QE Flourish programme and supports students holistic development.
• Celebrate academic success across the Senior School through awards, initiatives, and events that inspire a love of learning and pride in achievement.
• Support the admissions process by providing expert guidance on curriculum pathways and academic options for prospective families.

Quality Assurance and Compliance

• Lead quality assurance processes including learning walks, lesson observations, and curriculum audits to ensure consistency, engagement, and rigour across all classrooms.
• Ensure full compliance with National Curriculum for England academic standards, international benchmarks, and local regulatory requirements, particularly in relation to curriculum, staffing, and inspection readiness.
• Lead on academic elements of inspections and accreditation processes, including preparation, documentation, and stakeholder engagement.
• Maintain and update academic policies to reflect best practice and statutory requirements, ensuring alignment with the school s mission and educational philosophy

Leadership and Collaboration

• Deputise for the Head of Senior School when required, providing confident and consistent leadership across academic and operational matters.
• Work in close partnership with the Deputy Head of Senior school (Pastoral) to ensure that academic and pastoral systems are cohesive, student_x0002_centred, and mutually reinforcing.
• Collaborate with the Deputy Head of Prep School (Academic) and leadership colleagues to ensure vertical alignment of curriculum, pedagogy, and assessment from early years to graduation.
• Contribute actively to whole-school strategy, innovation, and improvement through regular participation in senior leadership meetings and cross-departmental initiatives.