29 Aug
|
Brisbane Grammar School
|
Spring Hill
29 Aug
Brisbane Grammar School
Spring Hill
The School
Brisbane Grammar School is a non-denominational boys’ school of about 2000 students (Years 5 to12) overlooking the Brisbane CBD. The School maintains a 150-year robust tradition of academic excellence, extensive cocurricular activities and student wellbeing programs. We are fortunate to have a team of dedicated and professional staff who provide an exceptional learning environment responsive to the needs of our students.
Our Professional Community
Brisbane Grammar School values the professionalism of our teaching staff and seeks to nurture a dynamic learning culture at the School for both students and staff. The School provides freedom for teachers to be creative and innovative, and to develop and grow our research capacity in pedagogical practice and blended learning. The School’s academic structures support collaboration, with staff working in teams within and across disciplines and between the Middle and Senior Schools.
Our teachers model collaborative, lifelong learning, and are supported through generous professional development opportunities and high-quality resources.
Our Learning Environment In recent years, Brisbane Grammar School carefully audited and reviewed its curriculum frameworks and practices. Our curriculum design processes are led by teachers who continually grow and refine their teaching skills. As a result, we are committed to systematically developing effective thinking cultures within all classrooms and staffrooms.
We plan learning experiences in the language of student thinking and cognition and give feedback and guide learner improvement through distinct values of inquiry. The School has a well-supported and pedagogically advanced Tablet PC program, with all students in Years 7 to 12 enabled for one-to-one learning. Teachers are encouraged to work together to use technology and space in innovative ways, ensuring adaptive and transformative curriculum delivery.
We are growing our capacity to identify and analyse relevant data that helps our teachers to respond to their students’ learning needs. In addition, the explicit teaching of literacy and numeracy informs curriculum design and classroom practice.
Applicants for all teaching positions must be eligible for registration with the Queensland College of Teachers and provide their academic transcripts and should be sympathetic to the aims and ethos of independent schools.
About the Role The Head of Technologies will lead the Technologies Department in developing, articulating and committing to a shared educational vision focused on providing high-quality learning experiences and outcomes for all students. The role is responsible for the leadership of curriculum, teaching practice, pedagogical improvement and student progress across Design, Engineering and Digital Technologies, and for actively nurturing a community of learners comprising staff and students. The Head of Technologies will provide strategic leadership for a department based in the STEAM Precinct, ensuring that the specialist facilities, technologies and collaborative possibilities of the precinct are used purposefully, safely and sustainably to strengthen disciplinary and interdisciplinary learning.
Key Responsibilities
- The overall leadership and development of the team of teachers implementing Technologies programs from Years 5–12 at BGS.
- Leading coherent implementation of the Australian Curriculum: Design and Technologies and Digital Technologies across the relevant year levels, including alignment of ACARA achievement standards with BGS curriculum, assessment and reporting.
- Leading the enactment of the QCAA General senior syllabuses for Design and Engineering in Years 11 and 12, including curriculum planning, assessment design, quality assurance and moderation.
- Ensuring purposeful curriculum continuity and progression from the Australian Curriculum subjects into the senior Design and Engineering pathways, with particular attention to transitions through Years 7–8, Years 9–10 and entry to Years 11–12.
- Identifying, modelling and evaluating signature pedagogies across Technologies, including design thinking, engineering problem-solving, computational thinking, iterative prototyping, project-based learning and the safe use of specialist tools and digital systems.
- Ensuring BGS Effective Thinking frameworks are embedded in the design of learning experiences across the Department and aligned with the BGS Framework for Teaching.
- Developing an annual Department Improvement Plan for Technologies and using it to inform staff professional learning, drive targeted improvement and operationalise the School’s strategic priorities.
- Planning for and overseeing meaningful engagement by staff and students in STEAM learning experiences, and optimising the educational affordances of the STEAM Precinct.
- Leading the safe, ethical, responsible and sustainable use of technologies, resources, data and specialist facilities within the Department.
Teaching and Learning Leadership
- Ensure quality implementation within the Department of the School’s strategic priorities, including Effective Thinking Cultures and STEAM, as articulated in the annual Department Improvement Plan.
- Facilitate the leadership of teams of teachers in pedagogical inquiry, based on a Spiral of Inquiry approach, including modelling critical reflection on practice.
- Lead the development and refinement of curriculum and assessment in ways that address the needs of BGS boys in the learning of Design, Engineering and Digital Technologies.
- Ensure alignment among curriculum sequences, learning experiences, assessment instruments, achievement standards and syllabus objectives.
- Lead curriculum mapping across Years 5–12 so that knowledge, skills and processes develop coherently across Design and Technologies, Digital Technologies, Design and Engineering.
- Model and enable innovation within the Department, focused on improvement in disciplinary teaching practice and the productive integration of physical and digital technologies.
- Promote authentic design briefs, engineering challenges and digital solutions that connect learning with real-world needs, users, contexts and ethical considerations.
- Use evidence, student work and achievement data to evaluate curriculum effectiveness, identify students requiring support or extension, and plan targeted interventions.
- Facilitate and support networking with universities, industry, professional associations, external organisations and community members, where appropriate.
- Facilitate and support student participation in enrichment activities, competitions, exhibitions, showcases, excursions and tutorials, as appropriate.
- Ensure implementation of Access Arrangements and Reasonable Adjustments (AARA), in line with student needs and relevant requirements.
- Promote interdisciplinary collaboration across STEAM while preserving the integrity and explicit teaching of each Technologies discipline.
Supervisory Leadership
- Model critical reflection and a growth mindset and promote these dispositions within the team.
- Seek opportunities for feedback on self and team, and use feedback to strengthen leadership and collective practice.
- Model positive professional relationships built on relational trust within the School and with the wider community.
- Nurture a culture of collaborative professionalism through purposeful, strategically aligned Department meetings and team processes.
- Demonstrate care and concern for members of the Technologies Department and take an active interest in the wellbeing of colleagues.
- Support and promote staff professional learning, including disciplinary currency, pedagogical improvement, evidence-informed reflection and safe practice in specialist environments.
- Support, contribute to and model engagement in the Professional Growth Program.
- Liaise with relevant leaders and teachers, where appropriate, to support the individual learning and wellbeing needs of students.
- Encourage staff membership of appropriate professional organisations and engagement with curriculum, industry and tertiary networks.
- Facilitate the induction of new teachers into the Department, the STEAM Precinct and established ways of working, including safety and resource-management expectations.
- Provide and encourage leadership development opportunities within the Department and the wider academic community, including appropriate QCAA roles.
- Uphold the School’s Code of Conduct within the Department and respond professionally, in line with BGS policies and procedures, when expectations of staff are not fulfilled or performance of duties is unsatisfactory.
Operational Leadership
- Lead the effective implementation of curriculum and assessment by ensuring the preparation and distribution of appropriate course overviews, units of work, learning resources, assessment instruments and marking guides.
- Ensure fidelity with QCAA quality assurance processes for Design and Engineering, including endorsement, confirmation, internal quality assurance and external assessment requirements, as applicable.
- Oversee calibration and moderation procedures across Years 5–10 and robust internal moderation in the senior subjects.
- Oversee safe systems of work in the STEAM Precinct, including appropriate risk management, induction, supervision, maintenance and use of specialist equipment, workshops, laboratories and digital systems.
- Coordinate equitable and efficient access to specialist spaces, equipment, software, materials and technical support across the Department.
- Oversee the selection, lifecycle planning and educational evaluation of technologies, software, machinery, equipment and consumable materials.
- Ensure appropriate practices for digital citizenship, privacy, cybersecurity, intellectual property, academic integrity and ethical technology use are enacted in Department programs.
- Provide respectful and thoughtful representation of the Technologies Department at Heads of Department meetings and relevant STEAM planning forums.
- Cooperate in framing a school-wide schedule of assessments, projects, exhibitions, excursions and competitions.
- Support students and parents in course and subject selection, including clear communication about pathways through Design and Technologies, Digital Technologies, Design and Engineering.
Administrative Leadership
- Oversee and organise the Department’s requirements for reporting, curriculum documentation, resources, budgets, procurement, timetable needs, class lists, storage and retention, licences, software, consumables, excursions and events.
- Manage Department and STEAM Precinct resources responsibly, including forward planning for replacement, maintenance and safe disposal.
- Work with relevant operational staff to coordinate maintenance, compliance records, access arrangements and safe availability of specialist facilities and equipment.
- Assist the Head of Curriculum Services and the Director of Assessment and Reporting with duties that apply to the operations of the Technologies Department.
- Submit to the Director of Assessment and Reporting an Order of Merit list for students studying relevant subjects so that the Annual Prize list can be compiled.
- Maintain accurate, accessible and current Department documentation, including curriculum plans, assessment records, risk controls, inventories and operational procedures.
Experience, Qualifications, Skills
- A recognised teaching qualification and current eligibility for teacher registration in Queensland.
- Tertiary qualifications relevant to Design, Engineering, Digital Technologies, Technologies education or a closely related field.
Postgraduate qualifications are desirable
- Demonstrated capacity to secure strong student engagement, progress and achievement.
- Experience in senior curriculum and assessment in Design and/or Engineering is highly desirable.
- Experience across more than one Technologies discipline, or demonstrated capacity to lead across disciplines, is desirable.
- Previous significant curriculum or team leadership experience
- Demonstrated experience leading curriculum improvement, staff development, collaborative planning and assessment quality assurance.
- Experience overseeing specialist facilities, equipment, technologies, budgets or complex operational requirements is desirable.
Application Process Brisbane Grammar School recognises the value of diverse thinking and we encourage qualified candidates from diverse backgrounds to apply.
To better understand what it means to join BGS, please review the information on our website and social media accounts before submitting your application. You should also familiarise yourself with our key policies and procedures available on the School website, which may assist you during the recruitment process.
Our organisation is committed to protecting children and young people from harm. We require all applicants to undergo an extensive screening process prior to appointment. Candidates must disclose any information relevant to their eligibility to engage in activities involving children.
Brisbane Grammar School reserves the right to close the advertisement before the listed closing date.
BGS is an Equal Employment Opportunity employer committed to fostering a diverse, inclusive, and culturally safe workplace where everyone feels respected, valued, and empowered to thrive. Our recruitment process is designed to be inclusive and accessible. If you require adjustments at any stage, please let us know — we’re here to support you.
📌 Head of Technologies (Spring Hill)
🏢 Brisbane Grammar School
📍 Spring Hill