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South Gloucestershire Council Hiring for Strategic Lead – Education Improvement & Commissioning Job at Bristol, England , UK Full Time
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How you’ll make a difference
South Gloucestershire is a great place to live, work and visit. We have a valued heritage, beautiful natural environments and businesses that command high ambition. Our Council Plan is equally ambitious as we aspire to be recognised locally and nationally for what we achieve as a council and with our many partners.
The number one priority for the Council recognises that children and young people are our future, and we are determined to give them the very best start in life. Our priority is excellence in education and skills, ensuring equal opportunities for all. We see education as the primary driver for tackling inequality and with our partners we will provide an inclusive education offer in which leaders and staff have high aspirations for all children. We want all children to be able to access high quality education wherever they live, whatever their economic circumstances and their ethnic origin, so that all have opportunity to achieve their full potential.
Over the last 3-4 years we have developed strong and highly effective partnerships with our schools. Local leaders in education have demonstrated the highest ambition for all our children and young people. Working together through strong collaboration and sharing great practice, the local education system has been transformed. This means that 93% of primary schools and 80% of secondary schools now judged by Ofsted to be good or outstanding. But we are not complacent, and we will continue to build on recent success until all our schools are at least good and delivering excellent education.
As Strategic Lead – Education, Improvement and Commissioning you will have the opportunity to continue this improvement and further develop our strategy to achieve our ambition.
You will achieve this the promoting the highest possible standards of education for children and young people, and ensuring robust challenge to all schools in respect of standards and progress
What will you be doing?
- You will be the lead officer in the council responsible for ensuring high and ambitious standards of education across all local authority maintained schools and, in partnership with leaders of Multi Academy Trusts, for maintaining high standards across all schools in the local area.
- You will have responsibility for identifying, providing, or commissioning support for and intervening, as necessary, in schools which are vulnerable or causing concern to bring about rapid improvement.
- You will oversee provision for vulnerable or disadvantaged children, ensuring young people have access to the best possible educational opportunities and achieve their maximum potential.
- You will fully support the Virtual School to fulfil its responsibility for the education of children in care to ensure the best possible outcomes.
- You will ensure that there is high quality education provision in the local area for children and young people with special educational needs.
- You will ensure that there is high quality alternative provision for children excluded from school, and that young people in custody receive high quality education.
- Working in partnership with local education leaders of local authority maintained schools and academy trusts you will build effective partnerships and collaborations so that best practice is shared and system-wide strategies developed to ensure no child or young person attending one of our schools is left behind
- You will maintain strong working relationships with head teachers and governors of Local Authority maintained schools, academy sponsors and head teachers, the Diocesan Authorities, and other Local Authorities to improve educational outcomes for children and young people in South Gloucestershire including identification of opportunities to establish informal or formal arrangements leading to conversion to academy status when appropriate.
- You will commission services to ensure that the local authority delivers on its statutory responsibilities in relation to religious education.
- You will manage a small team of senior education officers and school leaders responsible for safeguarding, equality and diversity and school improvement.
- You will collaborate closely with members of the Regional Delivery Department including plans to convert schools from local authority maintained to academy status and in monitoring specific aspects of school performance.
- You will work closely with Heads of School Improvement from across the Region, sharing best practice and developing a regional response to government policy developments.
- You will be accountable for ensuring efficient and effective use of revenue budgets provided by the council to enable schools to improve and improved education outcomes to be achieved.
What we need from you
- You will be a highly effective senior education leader with a proven track record in driving improvement of individual schools and enabling school-led arrangements to school improvement across the system.
- You must have a professional educational qualification relevant to the Local Education Authority functions of the council.
- You will have experience of supporting Ofsted inspections of schools and engaging with the Inspection team.
- You will have developed broad knowledge of public sector service delivery, through direct provision and commissioning with specific experience of commissioning school improvement services.
- You will have acquired business acumen to create an environment where management of cost and service user satisfaction are achieved.You will have strong partnership skills to build strategic partnerships and relationships which create joined up solutions to complex issues for service users and residents.
- You will have gained a substantial record of senior leadership achievement and experience within schools, developing strategies, and translating them into effective operational plans.
- You will have gained a good understanding of Children’s Services, the operation of schools, early years and childcare settings
- You will have sound knowledge of relevant legislation, statutory guidance, national policies, initiatives and Codes that apply to schools.
- You will have developed strategic awareness of the issues affecting families and children and how data and intelligence should be used to identify and address these issues.
How a career at South Gloucestershire Council is different
We know our team work best when they have balance in their lives and we offer genuine flexibility to help them achieve that work/life balance.
As part of our benefits package, you will receive generous annual leave (pro rata), employee wellbeing support and you will have access to a range of staff discounts, including eye tests, travel, shopping and leisure activities
We are committed to safeguarding and promoting the safety and welfare of children, young people and vulnerable adults. Ensuring all our staff are given right skills, knowledge and support to recognise and respond effectively to potential abuse or neglect.
We recognise that our diverse team of skilled and dedicated people make us a great place to work. We welcome applications from everyone and ensure that individuals are selected, promoted and developed on the basis of their merits and abilities.
Our teams at South Gloucestershire Council are making a real difference to the lives of people who live, work and learn here.
- We’re building and shaping communities which people are proud of
- We’re working with the most vulnerable in our community to help them achieve what they want in life
- We’re investing in our schools to ensure every child and young person in South Gloucestershire achieves their full potential.
We’ve achieved a great deal, but we need talented and dedicated people to ensure we continue to make a difference.
We’re making a difference, be part of it!
To apply: Please note, we will not see your CV, this is only provided to help you create part of your application form. Please complete the application question.
Interviews: Panel interviews will be held early October with a view to offer being made mid October.
Start Date: Early January 2023
