Head of Learning, Teaching & Assessment

Location: Bedfordshire

Benefits: 35 days annual leave plus Bank holidays, Teacher’s pension, Retail and Leisure Discounts, excellent professional and personal development opportunities, accessing college courses.

About the role:

We are seeking applications for an exceptional leader with a strong record of leading and driving outstanding practice and a real passion for supporting and developing teaching and learning excellence.

The Head of Learning, Teaching and Development will contribute significantly to the achievement of the Colleges strategic goals ensuring high quality education for our learners and outstanding performance outcomes. You will lead a team to plan and deliver a framework of support for teachers across the group. You will be ‘visionary’ and ‘creative’ in your approach, constantly assessing new and innovative ways to inspire excellence, developing targeted CPD and training and providing personalised mentoring and coaching which not only addresses skills gaps, but promotes and cascades the latest trends and ‘best practice’ within our profession.

You will develop close relationships with Curriculum Heads, creating a culture of continuous improvement and high performance, driving outstanding practice cross college. You will work closely with managers and teams to develop an exciting CPD offer, which is both meaningful and impactful, and ultimately targeted to meet the bespoke needs of their department, supporting teachers to engage in new and innovative strategies and approaches.

To support you in your role, you will work alongside and line manage a team of experienced and energetic coaches who have a wealth of experience and expertise across of range of teaching and learning specialisms. You and your team of established practitioners will be advocates of engaging best practice across the group, promoting a culture of continuous improvement and of high performance where all staff thrive and flourish. Our commitment to staff and their development, ensures all of our learners benefit from outstanding teaching and learning, enabling them to make accelerated progress.

About you:

• Full teaching qualification (PCGE, Cert Ed, QTS)
• Degree and/or vocational training at an equivalent level
• GCSE Maths and English (Grade A-C) or equivalent (Level 2)
• Experience of leading staff in a further education environment.
• Proven track record of successfully leading on, and the management of, effective improvements in Learning, Teaching & Assessment in further education.
• Proven track record of delivering outstanding quality lessons in further education.
• Proven track of effectively promoting and championing best practices to staff across a range of curriculum areas leading to improvements in practice
• Experience of carrying out lesson observations/learning walks and effectively undertaking professional discussions on learning, teaching and assessment
• Experience of staff line-management with ability to motivate and develop teams of people
• Experience of producing improvement
• Excellent people management skills
• Excellent organisational skills
• Good project management skills

Interviews to be held: 16th February 2025

Successful candidates must also be able to demonstrate alignment to our organisational VISION values:

• Valuing Teamwork - We are one team who by working together can achieve great things, respecting the opinion and valuing the contribution each of us makes.
• Improving Continuously - We challenge ourselves to always do better by trying new things, sharing knowledge, reflecting on practice and learning from others.
• Student Centred - At our heart is always doing what is best for our students. We consider students in all of our decision making to create positive outcomes and memorable experiences for every student.
• Inclusive - We celebrate differences and diversity, recognising that we can learn from each other.
• Open and Caring - We care about the wellbeing of our staff, our students, our community and wider society, creating an environment built on trust where we listen, engage with and support each other.
• Nurturing Education Excellence - We promote educational excellence by delivering programmes that challenge our students to achieve their ambitions.

About Bedford College Services (BCS)

BCS is A multi-faceted enterprise that operates across the leisure, hospitality, catering, theatre and facilities hire sectors.

The purpose of BCS is to provide a suite of commercial services to the staff and students of The Bedford College Group and to the wider community. Always striving to provide the highest quality of product and services and endeavouring to ensure that its supply chain complies with modern day thinking of sustainability, carbon emissions and modern slavery. BCS will bid for external contracts to provide those services, exploiting its management skills and capacity. Additionally BCS works to enrich student and staff experience within the Group through work experience, qualifying courses or apprenticeship, actively engaging withing the communities it operates in.

About The Bedford College Group

The Bedford College Group was formed in 2017 following the merger of Bedford College and Tresham College and is now the largest provider of education in the South East Midlands, with over 15,000 students passing through our doors each year.

Today, the Group is made up of a family of colleges across Bedfordshire and Northamptonshire: Bedford College, Central Bedfordshire College and Tresham College in the towns of Bedford, Dunstable, Leighton Buzzard, Corby, Kettering and Wellingborough; Shuttleworth College, a specialist land-based college; The Bedford Sixth Form, (the only dedicated sixth form in Bedford); The Corby Sixth Form, (opened in September 2023); and the National College for Motorsport alongside Silverstone race circuit. To widen accessibility to education and training, the Group also has community-based Learning Centres in Bedford, Corby and Kettering which offer IT training.

Safeguarding our Students

The Bedford College Group is committed to safeguarding and promoting the welfare of children and young people and expects all staff and volunteers to share this commitment. The successful candidate will be subject to thorough vetting process which includes, an enhanced DBS check and satisfactory references.

This post is exempt from the Rehabilitation of Offenders Act 1974. The Rehabilitation of Offenders Act 1974 and the Exceptions Order 1975, provides information about which convictions must be declared during job applications and related exceptions and further information about filtering offences can be found in the DBS filtering guide. The Bedford College Group's policy on Employment of Ex-Offenders is attached to this vacancy.

Candidates who are barred from working with children are reminded it is a criminal offence to apply for this post.

Job Description:

JDPS - Head of Learning Teaching Assessment M3.pdf