Position Vacancy - Head Teacher Leave Replacement, 3/4s (Nursery) - Potential Opening
Full time. One-year position.
Start Date: 8/31/2020
End Date: June 30, 2021
About the School A leader in progressive education for more than 100 years, the Bank Street School for Children provides students, from nursery through 8th grade, an education that engages their natural curiosities, nurtures critical thinking, and helps to develop a sense of community and social responsibility. Through a teaching approach that is fundamentally hands-on and child-centered, Bank Street students develop the courage and confidence to think independently, work collaboratively, understand themselves and others more deeply, and possess the compassion to make a positive impact in the world.
Essential Responsibilities Work with children. Classroom teachers are responsible for teaching a mixed-age group of children in all subject areas, planning to meet the needs of the entire group as well as individual children. Enabling the social, emotional, physical, and intellectual development of each child is a teacher’s primary responsibility.
Work with Environment and Materials. Teachers are responsible for designing, organizing, and maintaining a materials-based classroom that reflects the curriculum and current work of the children. Teachers create and prepare materials that serve the curriculum. Teachers should be able to use various forms of technology to enhance student learning.
Curriculum Development. Teachers are responsible for developing curriculum in all areas based on children's developmental capacities and needs, including healthy separation and attachment experiences in the school setting; self-care skills for increasingly independent eating, napping, and toiletting skills; and emotions and emotional expression. Teachers are responsible for using the most current understanding of social-emotional learning, as well as literacy learning, mathematics, and interdisciplinary curriculum development in social studies, science, and the arts for young children. Curriculum development is informed by ongoing, anecdotal, and formal assessments of children’s work and learning in all areas. An anti-bias, multicultural understanding must be reflected in the curriculum developed for children. Special emphasis is placed on social studies as the core of classroom life and learning.
Work with Adults.
AssociateTeachers: As cooperating practitioners for graduate students who are placed in their classrooms, head teachers plan cooperatively with associate teachers and hold weekly supervisory meetings. The Head Teacher is expected to foster a collaborative, cooperative spirit in the classroom teaching team.
Staff: An interest in professional growth is expected. Head and Associate Teachers meet with their curriculum coordinator and participate in weekly age-group meetings and weekly staff meetings after school. Teachers also collaborate with subject area specialists (art, music, library, shop, P.E., Movement, Spanish) to design and implement curriculum. As part of a diagnostic team, teachers work with learning specialists, a school psychologist, and meet with parents, tutors, and therapists.
Parents: Teachers email weekly classroom updates to families. Teachers are required to meet with parents twice yearly for individual conferences and to be available for additional conferences when needed. Teachers and parents work together to increase each other's knowledge of the children. Lower School Head Teachers communicate with parents in mid-year check-ins, and write an end-of-year comprehensive report on each child.
Visitors: In addition to modeling a Bank Street approach to education by having daily visitors and observers in the classroom, teachers may be asked to speak to visiting groups.
Desired Qualifications • A Masters degree in Education
• Deep knowledge of, commitment to, and experience with progressive education and schooling
• Extensive early childhood teaching experience, including 3- and 4- year olds
• Demonstrated personal and professional commitment to social justice and equity
• Strong interpersonal and organizational skills, including written and oral communication
• Warmth, humor, flexibility, and optimism |
