Job Description

Education Operations Lead – Job Description

Salary: £25,000 - £32,000 (depending on experience)

Reporting to: Partnerships Director

Location: Central London

Contract Type: Permanent, Full Time position 

The Organisation

Equal Education is a social enterprise with the aim of improving educational outcomes for the most vulnerable children in our society - those who are in our care system. We believe by working with the most underachieving we can lift society as a whole.

As a team, we are passionate about our cause. We are problem solvers who have turned our attention to being ambitious about solving a complex and demanding social problem, using technical innovation to underpin social innovation. We work with over 500 qualified teachers to provide academic, subject specialised and individual tutoring for children who are looked after and are also expanding our services to help children with SEN. Our success relies upon a strong operating foundation and people who are motivated by a strong desire to change the status quo. Our founders and team are restless in driving continuous improvement, whether that is through culture, attitudes or metrics.

As a growing organisation, we have ambitious plans for 2018. In addition to the prospect of our operations being expanded to the US and Australia in the medium term, we are poised to create the world’s largest education programme for children in care in the West Midlands, UK. We propose to work with thousands of children over the coming 6 years. Our core team is still small, formed of the two co-founders. With a lot of growth expected in the space of the coming months, we plan to expand our team substantially this year.

The Role

The most ambitious organisations won’t make much progress without an organised and robust operational foundation and a powerful focus on the needs of the children we work with. We are therefore looking for an experienced Education Operations Lead with a knack for keeping things organised and maintaining workflows while ensuring quality support for the children, tutors, schools and foster carers that we work with. You will be ideally placed to help keep the organisation on track ensuring we are maximising our social impact. The role comes with plenty of responsibility, along with the opportunity to progress.

What will you actually be doing?

The role involves overseeing Equal Education's work with parents, carers and teachers to create lasting and impactful tutoring relationships. We need someone who can listen to the needs of our young people in care and ensure they receive the support we can provide for them. Day to day this involved listening to parents and carers to match the right tutor with our children. Specifically, you would be responsible for:

1. Working with Carers

• Listening and speaking with foster carers to introduce Equal Education and confirming schedules and availability of their children and supporting them throughout the placement to ensure the child’s education is the priority

• Working with carers and venues to organise the right learning environment for the child

2. Working with Tutors

• Informing tutors about children requiring tutoring

• Speaking with tutors to aid them in changes that need to be made to improve the education for the child

• Championing the importance of consistency and quality of tuition to tutors and carers

• Building a sense of community with our network of teachers

3. Working with the team and others

• Working with client accounts lead to ensure all stakeholders are up to date on the progress of placing a tutor with a child

• Understanding and reviewing any issues so they can be handled by the right person to ensure minimal disruption to a child’s tutoring

• Understanding and communicating the outcomes of each tutoring placement, to ensure it is successful.

• Championing and challenging professionals to ensure the individual child’s outcomes are the highest priority, both internal and external to Equal Education.

4. Reporting, tracking and monitoring

• Review our internal dashboards, calendars and systems to ensure tutoring placements are running smoothly

• Being aware of safeguarding and ensuring all details are checked prior to a placement commencing

• Advising tutors on the quality of their reporting

• Reviewing and creating deadlines in coordination with our stakeholders for each step in the allocation process

5. Working with the leadership team – This is will be less often and is a development aspect of the role

• Refining operational workflows

• Developing and refining internal metrics

• Developing a closer integration between our allocation and recruitment activity

• Deputising for the senior management team where necessary

The Ideal Candidate

You'll need to be comfortable providing day-to- day operations management with a strong emphasis on the quality of the tutoring relationships that you broker. As a key link between our clients, our operations and our senior management, you need to be a good communicator. One of our biggest criteria, aside from relevant qualifications and experience, is the understanding and strong desire work on the social problem. We will be assessing this in our interviews.

The following are also must-haves:

• First and foremost, caring and empathetic about the education outcomes of children in the care system

• An understanding of the schooling system and wider education landscape

• Advocacy skills to ensure timely delivery of services to the children we work with

• Good understanding of business processes

• Proactive and transparent in record keeping and communication

• Excellent telephone manner and the ability to speak to individuals from all walks of life effectively and respectfully

• The ability to work to tight deadlines

• A problem solving mindset

Desirable:

• Understanding children’s services and delivery of local services

• Experience or knowledge of SEN provision and local offering

• Experience working within the local government/school and social work sectors would be a huge plus but is not an absolute must.

• Knowledge of the tumultuous world of Social Enterprise!

Please apply with your CV and a cover letter which outlines how you meet the 'must-have' criteria for our ideal candidate.