General Studies Teacher - Dorchester Learning Centre

Salary - £32,916 - £45,352 + £2,787 per annum. Dorchester Learning Centre is looking for an inspirational and dedicated General Studies teacher to join our school in September 2026. The role will involve teaching across different subjects, so this post might suit a middle school teacher. This is a position that will allow you to focus on delivering personalised learning to our pupils and make a difference to the lives of young people. You will be working with a team who are passionate about helping our pupils to be the best that they can be. Our class sizes are small (8-10 pupils), with a Learning Mentor to support you. If putting children first in education matters to you, we would love to hear from you.

You should be able to demonstrate:

• Previous experience of teaching Maths, English, Science and PSHE.
• Previous experience of working with pupils with ASD and SEMH.
• Ability to develop strong professional relationships with young people who have complex needs and have often experienced significant difficulties in previous education settings.
• Creativity, compassion and dedication to take on additional professional development.
• Skills in planning and preparing learning activities to support the development within the national curriculum and improve social communication.
• Expertise to react calmly to challenging situations and behaviour and demonstrate the resilience needed to support children with high levels of anxiety.
• Develop guidance to support others to manage behaviour in a positive way.
• Experience in communicating frequently and effectively with colleagues and families about the needs of the children and regularly reviewing strategies and practice as their needs change.
• Aptitude to use your own initiative to meet young people's varying and complex needs.

Dorchester Learning Centre educates pupils aged between 5 and 16, who cannot access mainstream education for a variety of reasons including medical, SEMH, dual registered placements with a mainstream school or pupils who have been permanently excluded from their mainstream provision. We are the only school in Dorset with the Trauma Informed School accreditation. We are a learning community that is child centred, putting the needs of our pupils first.

Dorchester Learning Centre values the diversity of our workforce and welcomes applications from all sectors of the community.

Dorchester Learning Centre is committed to safeguarding and promoting the welfare of children and young people; this is a commitment we expect all staff and volunteers to share. The successful candidate will be required to have a Disclosure and Barring Service check in line with the Government's safer recruitment guidelines.

This role is UK based and your Right to Work will need to be established as part of the appointment process.

This post is exempt from the Rehabilitation of Offenders Act (ROA) 1974. The amendments to the ROA 1974 (Exceptions Order 1975, 2013 and 2020) provide that when applying for certain jobs and activities, certain spent convictions and cautions are 'protected', so they do not need to be disclosed to employers, and if they are disclosed, employers cannot take them into account. The MOJ's guidance on the Rehabilitation of Offenders Act 1974 and the Exceptions Order 1975 provides information about which convictions must be declared during job applications and related exceptions and further information about filtering offences can be found in the DBS filtering guide.

Keeping Children Safe in Education: Dorchester Learning Centre will conduct online searches of shortlisted candidates. This check will be part of a safeguarding check, and the search will purely be based on whether an individual is suitable to work with children. All aspects of social media and internet searches will be conducted. As care must be taken to avoid unconscious bias and any risk of discrimination, a person who will not be on the appointment panel will conduct the searches and will only share information if and when findings are relevant and of concern.