Group Leader for New Schools

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We're on a mission to give our colleagues an amazing work/life balance!

Job Title: Group Leader for New Schools

Contract Type: 37.5 hours per week 

Salary: £55,000 - £60,000 per annum plus car allowance and flexible benefits package

UK applicants only. This role does not offer sponsorship.

About the Role

Are you a strong school leader with experience of setting up new sites?

Outcomes First Group is on the lookout for a well-organized, professional, and ambitious person to come and join our growing team.

As our school leader for new sites, you would visit sites across the country we are looking to build or purchase, to scope out their quality and potential.  You will work alongside our premises team and quality team to evaluate business needs and help us shape our offer to support the local area.

Once a site has been agreed or built, you will take up a temporary position within the site to set up technology, systems and processes, training leaders and staff, accessing policies and paperwork and onboarding the new site into the OFG support networks.  This role is critical for communication, and you will become expert in all our internal systems and processes, and a strong networker between schools and central teams to ensure swift and effective onboarding.     

While in school, you might be delivering tours for prospective applicants or parents one day, supporting staff to create the website or choose a new exam board the next.  You may be interviewing for a caretaker one week, unpacking and turning on all the new laptops so IT can download the firewall the next.  The role will be a mixture of leadership and management, suitable for a strong school leader with experience of new settings, who can be flexible and adaptable, solving problems efficiently, preparing a site to handover to the staff so you can move on to your next project.

You will enjoy meeting new people and exploring new opportunities and be resilient and diligent.  You will become expert at preparing schools for their material change visit if they have added a new location, a sixth form or nursery, or in opening inspection visits for brand new builds.  You will be able to evaluate against the independent school standards and Ofsted criteria and you will understand the role of a wide range of independent special schools across the UK.

Our new school’s leader will act as the first point of contact for the on-site heads and any staff new to OFG, answering questions, directing them to the right person who can help and delivering on-site support to speed up the ability to respond to emerging issues.  You will work across the country and will experience the full range of pupils we support.  You may be in a small rural residential primary school one month, a large urban FE college the next.  You will thrive on challenge, be happy working to deadlines and will be able to make strong working relationships quickly.

To be successful in this role you will need:

• Experience of setting up a new school

• Good administration skills

• Strong computer skills and the ability to train others

• Knowledge of the full range of regulatory and inspection standards

• The ability to make strong working relationships quickly and in a range of high-pressure environments

• Patience and resilience

• Good customer service skills and sense of urgency

This role would suit a strong deputy head looking for a broad range of experiences rather than a single permanent headship, or a senior leader looking for challenge and regular changes of pace and location, such as a school improvement advisor or educational consultant.

We are looking for a new school guru who will provide an excellent level of support to our brand new and ‘new to us’ settings to help us work towards our vision to build incredible futures for vulnerable children, young people, and adults in the UK by empowering them to be happy and make their way in the world.

Each of our schools is unique, and operates independently, choosing their own curriculum, appointing their own staff, and designing their response to pupil needs bespoke to their location.  Your role is to make transition into group easier by guiding them to access support that is available, coaching them to make best use of the resources so that they maintain their individuality whilst minimising workload, to enable them to focus their time and energy on the children.

About the Quality team:

Our quality team provides central support to our schools to help them maintain their quality.  Our team includes the quality assurance function and school improvement teams, as well as health and safety and safeguarding.  This team works alongside core staff in the central teams for HR, finance, premises, clinical, technology and operational elements.  Your role will be to network and connect the new school to all these teams. 

Interested in hearing more? Join our family and take the next step in your journey. Apply with your CV and our Resourcing Team will be in touch.

About the Group

Outcomes First Group exists to make sure vulnerable young people get the opportunities they need, whether that involves providing them with specialist education and residential care or finding them dedicated foster families in which they can thrive.

There are two organisations in our Outcomes First family: Acorn Education and Care and Options Autism. Together, we educate, care for and support children and young people across the UK, empowering them to be happy and make their way in the world.

Why work for us?

Your well-being is very important to us, and we know that being able to choose the benefits that suit you and your family will support your well-being. 

Whatever your role and wherever you are located, you will love VISTA, our flexible benefits platform which lets you tailor your benefits package. 

And when your circumstances change‿no problem. You can flex, trade, and add to your benefits package to suit your circumstances. 

• Holidays start at 25 days per annum with options to buy an additional 5 days

• Critical illness cover, and life assurance options

• Company Pension with options to increase your contributions

• Private medical and dental Insurance

• 100’s of discount options valid in the UK and abroad

• Eco-Car Scheme

• “Your Wellbeing Matters- access to a wide range of first-class mental health support services and physical health checks

• Career development opportunities

• Professional support networks and groups

We are committed to safeguarding and promoting the welfare of children and young people and we expect all employees to share this commitment and undertake appropriate checks.

We are an Equal Opportunities Employer