Land & Animal Teacher -Ruskin Mill Trust, Grace Garden School, Bristol

Grace Garden School is a specialist school located on an 18-acre smallholding on the outskirts of Bristol, offering a range of outdoor learning activities in practical land and craft work to support the education and development of children and young people. Grace Garden School is part of Ruskin Mill Trust.

Established in 1984, Ruskin Mill Trust is an educational charity that operates in England, Scotland and Wales.  We offer exciting outdoor learning environments, utilising practical land and craft activities to support the development of work and life skills in young people with autistic spectrum conditions and other learning differences. Our research-led method, Practical Skills Therapeutic Education, is inspired by the work of Rudolf Steiner, John Ruskin and William Morris. Working with hand, head, heart and place, Ruskin Mill Trust helps individuals to re-imagine their potential. The Trust is committed to safeguarding and promoting the welfare of children and young people and expects all staff and volunteers to share this commitment. Successful applicants will be required to undergo a Disclosure and Barring Service Enhanced Level Disclosure as well as a medical check, references, evidence of qualifications, plus verification of the right to work in the UK.

Land & Animal Teacher
Qualified Salary: £28,887.22 – £40,990.67
Unqualified Salary: £26,308.80 – £33,474.64
Dependant on qualifications and experience
40 Hours per week, 52 weeks per year

We have an exciting opportunity for a Land & Animal Teacher to join the team at Grace Garden School in Bristol. You will be required to deliver a Land work curriculum, to create an appropriate learning environment to support the learning and development needs of individual students, as well as groups of students. You will also be required to support the day-to-day running of the site with regards to the land and managing the care of animals.

This role will mainly be based at our upper school in Stoke Hill, however you will be required to work across both our sites.
You will also be expected to attend training sessions as required by the Trust, which may be outside of your usual working hours.

Main duties include:
• Deliver high quality lessons to small groups of students
• Developing curriculum opportunities for land-based learning, working with the Land Manager
and Teachers ensuring land-based learning is supported throughout the school
• Ensure Biodynamic principles are fully fed into Grace Garden School’s land
• Support the ongoing creation and development of land-based curriculum and biodynamic
strategy for the school sites.
• Work with teachers on planning therapeutic and educational learning programmes.
• Have primary care of the animals of the farm, including feeding, cleaning and medical
treatment assistance, including weekends.
• Support staff training and deliver workshops in the field of biodynamics.

The qualifications, skills and experiences that we are looking for are:
• Full teaching qualification or equivalent experience
• A team player with experience of teaching with young people with SEND
• Adaptable and shows initiative
• High level of personal resilience
• Training in Biodynamic Agriculture or willing to attend training and work towards a qualification
• Have knowledge and experience (desirable) of working in specialist education and have an understanding of the Ruskin Mill Trust method of Practical Skills Therapeutic Education (PSTE).

The ideal candidate will have experience in teaching and hold a teaching qualification. However, we would still welcome applications from individuals who have not yet achieved this but are willing to train and learn.  Working at Ruskin Mill Trust is incredibly rewarding; we offer competitive salaries and holiday allowances, an auto-enrolment pension scheme with a salary sacrifice option, a health cash plan and employee assistance programme via Medicash. In addition, staff receive valuable training opportunities including an in-depth interactive induction to enable our new team members to experience our Practical Skills Therapeutic Education (PSTE) curriculum and also opportunities for further training and academic research including our own MSc in Practical Skills Therapeutic Education.  Full details of our benefits can be viewed on www.rmt.org/careers

For further information and to apply, please visit rmt.org/jobs  or contact  Claire Carrington – Smith
[email protected]

Closing date is Sunday, 11^th January 2026