Interview Date
Longlist 13 March, shortlist 18 March
Hours per week
Full time
This is a Permanent, Full time - full year vacancy that will close in {x} days at {xx:xx} BST.
The Vacancy
Salary: L9 (£62,920 full-time equivalent) + a great culture and amazing benefits
Contract: full time, permanent
Start date: 1 September 2026 (new starter induction day)
Are you passionate about working with children aged 2-6 ? Do you want to make a difference to the provision for our youngest learners?
This is an exciting opportunity to join the Senior Leadership Team at GSAL Primary as an Assistant Head, leading the Nursery to Year 1 phase of the school. This significant, non-class-based leadership role carries both strategic and operational responsibility for our youngest learners at a crucial stage in their development.
You will lead the day-to-day provision and long-term strategic direction of the Early Years Foundation Stage and Year 1, ensuring the continual evolution of teaching, curriculum design and the delivery of exceptional pastoral care. As Designated Safeguarding Lead for Nursery to Year 1 and an Assistant DSL within the wider school structure, you will place safeguarding and wellbeing at the heart of all decision-making, recognising the fundamental importance of these formative years in establishing strong attitudes to learning, independence and respectful behaviour.
Alongside leading the EYFS team, you will line manage and strategically oversee the after school provision for the whole primary phase, ensuring it reflects GSAL’s values and maintains the highest standards of care, enrichment and safeguarding beyond the core school day.
As a member of the Senior Leadership Team, you will contribute meaningfully to the strategic direction of GSAL. You will also work in partnership with our admissions team to build strong relationships with prospective families as well as assess children for admissions.
We are seeking an aspirational and experienced leader who is passionate about the holistic development of children aged 2–6 and who is driven to make a tangible difference to provision for our youngest learners. You will have a deep understanding of how young children learn and develop and the ability to translate this knowledge into strategic action. Experience of implementing and sustaining strategic change, leading and developing high-performing teams, and enabling colleagues to flourish in their roles is essential. A strong track record of working closely with parents in genuine partnership is also key.
This role would suit a current senior leader who is ready to take the next step in their career. The scope and responsibility of the post are comparable to that of a Deputy Head in a smaller school offering a substantial and rewarding leadership opportunity within GSAL Primary.
The Grammar School at Leeds primary school welcomes children from 3-11 and is based in its own building on the main school site. We have purpose built facilities, including performance spaces, music rooms, art, food technology and science rooms surrounded by playgrounds and extensive playing fields. We deliver outstanding pastoral and learning opportunities to enable every child to be kind, be brave and grow a little every day, which are our core primary values.
In the primary phase, the national curriculum is not rigidly followed, but is incorporated into the school’s scheme of work. Children are offered a wide range of extracurricular activities including music, sport and drama.
In return we offer the chance to work with committed, enthusiastic children in facilities unrivalled in the north of England, and as part of a high achieving and professional team.
Why GSAL?
The Grammar School at Leeds (GSAL) is one of the leading schools in the north and traces its history back to 1552. In the last five years GSAL Senior School has twice been named North Independent School of the Year, and North Independent School of the Decade in the Sunday Times Parent Power League Table.
At GSAL we are committed to the professional development of our staff. There are several opportunities for staff to learn and grow including fortnightly teaching and learning breakfasts (whole school), half termly teaching and learning lunches (primary), the annual teaching and learning conference and a range of apprenticeship schemes.
Benefits
We value our colleagues and offer a comprehensive benefits package, including:
Enhanced school holidays (approximately 16 weeks)
Significant discount on school fees
Enhanced, generous PPA time, with most meetings held within the school day
Subsidised childcare during INSET days (ages 3–11)
Defined Contribution pension scheme through Aviva (0% employee contribution, 21% employer contribution, plus 4x salary life insurance)
Training and CPD, including INSET days
Three-course colleague lunches for £2.40, plus free tea, coffee and hot chocolate
24/7 online GP access for you and your family via Health Hero
Employee Assistance Programme through Perkbox, including counselling, legal and financial advice
Discounts through Perkbox, teacher discounts and Extras
Scenic lunchtime walking routes across the 140-acre site
Onsite gym and swimming pool, plus fitness classes (Pilates, meditation, kettlebells, spinning and bootcamps)
Cycle to work salary sacrifice scheme
Free onsite parking
Access to the school’s extensive library facilities
Generous leave of absence scheme
Opportunities to be involved in extracurricular activities, wellbeing initiatives and community events
How to apply
Complete the online GSAL application form. Please be prepared to provide copies of any qualifications mentioned in your application. For any inquiries about the vacancy, feel free to contact vacancies@gsal.org.uk
More information about the role and responsibilities are contained in the job description and person specification attached in the documents section on our website advert. Please note we cannot offer tours or visits due to the high volume of interest. A tour is provided as part of the interviewing process.
The closing date for applications is: 08:00 Tuesday 10 March 2026
Interview date: Longlist interviews (via Teams Friday 13 March), shortlist interviews Wednesday 18 March 2026
The Company
.
Documents
Alternatively, please sign in with...
Published
Not Published
Closing
in X days
Expiry
10/03/2026 08:00
Share Vacancy
Click on any of the buttons below to share this page!
You have already applied for this vacancy, please go to your account to see your progress.
Privacy Policy
The Grammar School at Leeds privacy notice for applicants and candidates
A. General Principles
The Grammar School at Leeds (“GSAL”, “the school”) is a data controller with registered address at Alwoodley Gates, Harrogate Road, Leeds, LS17 8GS and is committed to ensuring that the personal data of its staff is handled in accordance with the principles set out in the UK General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR).
The school will process your information in accordance with the Data Protection Act 2018, the GDPR and its own Data Protection Policy and Data Retention Schedule. To comply with the law, data must be collected and used fairly, stored safely and securely, be adequate, relevant and not excessive, be kept accurate and up to date, held only as long as necessary and not disclosed to any third party unlawfully.
This policy applies to individuals applying for a position at GSAL whether as an employee or under any other contractual or voluntary arrangement, including prospective consultants, coaches, casual workers, supply staff, visiting music teachers, agency workers, extra-curricular providers, volunteers and individuals on work experience (“Applicants”).
This policy describes the categories of personal data that we collect, how we use your personal data, how we secure your personal data and when we may disclose your personal data to third parties. It also describes your rights regarding your personal data and how you can access, correct, and request erasure of your personal data.
As defined by the General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) The Grammar School at Leeds is the Data Controller and ultimately responsible for ensuring the data you provide is kept secure, processed correctly and that you understand your legal rights in relation to the data you provide.
The recruitment software we use via this website is supplied by IRIS Software Group Limited and they are defined as a Data Processor under the GDPR. They will only process your data in accordance with our instructions.
IRIS can be contacted at: 4th Floor Heathrow Approach, 470 London Road, Slough, England, SL3 8QY
For Data Protection enquiries, please contact the Help Desk at support@networxrecruitment.com
B. What information do we hold?
This information is normally initially provided to the school by you through an online application form via a third-party recruitment website (Networx).
To carry out our activities and obligations as a prospective employer, we may collect, store, and process the following categories of personal data about you:
personal contact details such as name, title, addresses, telephone numbers, and personal email addresses;
date of birth;
equal opportunities monitoring information;
copies of identification;
government identification numbers such national insurance number, driver’s license number or other identification card number;
qualifications, education and training records;
employment records (including professional memberships, references, work history, and proof of work eligibility);
Information of whether you have worked overseas so we can make the necessary checks; and
other personal details collected during the recruitment process, or other information that you otherwise voluntarily provide to us.
Collection and use of special categories of personal data
We may collect and process special categories of personal data and data relating to criminal convictions and offences, for a variety of purposes including undertaking screening (e.g. medical screening, right to work in the U.K., security screening, suitability to work with children, and safeguarding etc.) monitoring equal opportunities, making or considering work-place adjustments, management of health and safety or other legal obligations. Such special categories of personal data may include:
Information about an applicant’s racial and ethnic origin, religion, beliefs and disability information to ensure meaningful equal opportunity monitoring and reporting;
physical or mental health condition or disability information to provide appropriate adjustments where required during the recruitment stages, and to assess an applicant’s suitability for the role;
information about past criminal convictions and cautions that are not filtered, as a condition of employment for all posts, as required by applicable statute;
Some special categories of personal data, such as information about health or medical conditions, are processed to carry out employment law obligations (such as those in relation to disabilities).
Where we process other special categories of personal data, such as information about ethnic origin, sexual orientation or religion or belief, this is done for the purposes of equal opportunities monitoring.
C. Why do we process personal data?
We collect and process your personal information in order to manage our potential and subsequent employment relationship with you which includes:
Managing Human Resources processes such as recruitment and selection;
Communicating with you regarding the vacancy and recruitment process if you have been shortlisted for the role;
Monitoring equal opportunities and statistical analysis;
Where applicable, communicating with you if other similar/suitable vacancies arise;
Seeking references from current/former employers;
Responding to and defending any legal claims that may arise from the recruitment process.
Lawful basis
We process your personal data for the following purposes:
In order to take steps to enter into a contract.
In other cases, we have a legitimate interest in processing personal data before, during and after the end of the employment relationship. Processing prospective candidate’s data allows GSAL to:
Run recruitment and promotion processes;
Operate and keep a record of candidates who have applied for a role;
Ensure effective general HR and business administration;
To allow GSAL to appoint staff, contractors and volunteers.
D. How do we use your information within the school?
GSAL is required to obtain information about past criminal convictions and cautions that are not filtered, as a condition of employment for all posts. The school also undertakes DBS checks on all staff.
The amount of personal information shared within GSAL will be no more than is reasonably necessary.
We will use your personal data to answer your questions, enquiries and use your information on an anonymised basis to produce internal reports in relation to the candidate recruitment experience.
We will also use your personal data to improve our customer service and to make our services more valuable to you.
E. Who has access to your data?
Within the school, personal data may be shared between colleagues who legitimately need the information to carry out appropriate recruitment processes.
The school shares your data with third parties in order to obtain pre-employment references from other employers, employment background checks from third-party providers, necessary criminal records checks from the Disclosure and Barring Service (DBS), Teaching Regulation Agency.
F. Do we transfer your personal data to other countries?
We do not envisage transferring your personal data outside of the UK other than as indicated above and we have a commitment from our business partners and data processors that they too will honour this commitment. However, where you have worked outside of the UK, as part of our pre-employment checks, we may contact your appropriate employers for confirmation of your previous employment details, and other agencies as necessary for the compliance of relevant statutory checks. In such cases, we ensure that appropriate security and data protection measures are in place to protect your data including, for example, data minimisation, use of secure portals to transfer personal data and/or encryption of information. We will not permit personal data to be transferred or processed outside the UK, unless the processing meets the conditions set out within the GDPR regarding safety mechanism.
G. How does the school protect your personal data?
The school takes the security of your data seriously. Internal policies and controls have been put in place to try to ensure that your data is not lost, accidentally destroyed, misused or disclosed, and is not accessed except by its employees in the performance of their duties.
Where the school engages third parties to process personal data on its behalf, they do so on the basis of written instructions, are under a duty of confidentiality and are obliged to implement appropriate technical and organisational measures to ensure the security of data.
H. For how long does the organisation keep data?
Your data will be retained for the duration of the recruitment process and, if your application is unsuccessful, 6 months after the closure of the vacancy after which it will be destroyed securely. Your information will be retained for this period to allow candidates to challenge recruitment decisions. Successful candidate’s information required for employment purposes will be retained throughout your employment, all other documentation not relevant will be securely destroyed 6 months after your start date has been confirmed, this includes any supporting documentation which you provide for criminal reference checking and proof of address.
I. Your rights
You have a number of rights under Data Protection Legislation, which include:
Right of Access – You have the right of access to information we hold about you. We have up to one month to provide you with the information and at no cost to you. We will provide you with a copy of the information we hold that relates to you. For more information, please see our Data Protection Policy.
Right to rectification or erasure – If you feel that any data we hold about you is inaccurate, you have the right to ask us to correct or rectify it. You also have a right to ask us to erase information about you where you can demonstrate that the data we hold is no longer needed by us, or if you feel that we are unlawfully processing your data. Your right of rectification and erasure extends to anyone we have disclosed your personal information to and we will take all reasonable steps to inform them about your request.
Right to Restriction of processing – you have a right to request that we refrain from processing your data where you contest its accuracy, or the processing is unlawful and you have requested its erasure, or where we don’t need to hold your data anymore but you need us to in order to establish, exercise or defend any legal claims, or we are in dispute about the legality of our processing your personal data.
Right to object – you have a right to object to our processing of your personal data where the basis of the processing is our legitimate interests including but not limited to direct marketing and profiling.
Right to data portability - you have a right to receive any personal data that you have provided us to transfer it on to another data controller where the processing is based on consent or performance of a contract and is carried out by automated means. This is called a data portability request.
Rights related to automated decision-making, including profiling – you have the right not to be subject to a decision based solely on automated processing, including profiling, which produces legal effects concerning him or her or similarly significantly affects him or her.
If you would like to exercise any of these rights, please contact the school’s Data Manager at datamanager@gsal.org.uk (or by post to Data Manager, The Grammar School at Leeds, Alwoodley Gates, Harrogate Road, Leeds, LS17 8GS). For internal queries regarding this Privacy Notice, you can contact HR.
J. Information Commissioner's Office
More information about your data protection rights can be found on the Information Commissioner’s Office (ICO). You also have a right to lodge a complaint about any aspect of how we are handling your data with the ICO and can do so by contacting:
We do not make any decisions about you, using automated means and we do not envisage this changing in the near future. If the situation does change, we will notify you in writing.
L. What if you do not wish to provide personal data?
In order to process applications, you are required to provide the school with your personal data.
Certain information, such as contact details, your right to work in the UK, and statutory employment checks, must be provided to enable the school to effectively administer your application. If you do not provide this information, the school will not be able to administer your rights and fulfil obligations arising from the recruitment process.
M. Changes to this Privacy Notice
We may change this Privacy Notice from time to time. Any significant changes to the terms will be published on the school’s website and you will be notified of such changes. For full details of how data and privacy are managed by the school, please visit: www.gsal.org.uk/about/school-policies
Social Login
To continue creating your account, please read the privacy policy and tick the box below
To complete creating your profile with , please read and agree with the privacy policy.
The email used for your profile is not a valid company domain name. In order to
continue to create your profile with you will need to select a profile which uses a company authorised email address.
Cookie Preference Centre
Learn more about what each cookie category does and choose your settings
Cookie policy
Strictly Necessary
Name
__RequestVerificationToken
Duration
Session
Description
Anti-forgery Token
Name
ASP.NET_SessionId
Duration
Session
Description
General purpose platform session cookie, used by sites written with Miscrosoft .NET based technologies. Usually used to maintain an anonymised user session by the server.
Name
NTX_Cookie_Preferences_Live
Duration
6 Months
Description
Your cookie preferences
Performance / Analytics
Name
_ga
Duration
2 Years
Description
This cookie name is associated with Google Universal Analytics - which is a significant update to Google's more commonly used analytics service. This cookie is used to distinguish unique users by assigning a randomly generated number as a client identifier. It is included in each page request in a site and used to calculate visitor, session and campaign data for the sites analytics reports. By default it is set to expire after 2 years, although this is customisable by website owners.
Name
_gat
Duration
A few seconds
Description
This is a pattern type cookie set by Google Analytics, where the pattern element on the name contains the unique identity number of the account or website it relates to. It appears to be a variation of the _gat cookie which is used to limit the amount of data recorded by Google on high traffic volume websites.
Name
_gid
Duration
1 Day
Description
This cookie name is asssociated with Google Universal Analytics. This appears to be a new cookie and as of Spring 2017 no information is available from Google. It appears to store and update a unique value for each page visited.
Name
NetworxTracking_AdvertClick
Duration
90 Days
Description
Used for tracking if the candidate has already clicked the advert - used for analytics
Name
NetworxTracking_AdvertLoad
Duration
90 Days
Description
Used for tracking if the candidate has already loaded the advert - used for analytics
Functional Cookies
Name
ApplicationIntroductionID
Duration
90 Days
Description
Check to see if the candidate has already read the introduction for the Application
Name
FavouriteVacancies
Duration
30 Days
Description
Store any jobs the candidate has flagged as a favourite
If you would like to exercise any of these rights, please contact the school’s Data Manager at