Learning and Engagement Lead

Dynamics Position Number 113249

Number of Positions: 1

Contract Details: Fixed Term Contract until 31 March 2026

Salary: BCP Band J £41,511 - £44,711 p.a.

Working Hours: 37

Location: Poole Museum

Closing Date: 16/02/2025

Job Category: Libraries / Arts / Culture

Region / Division: Operations

Business Unit: Customer, Arts and Property

Role Purpose

Poole Museum is no ordinary museum. Following a transformative investment of over £10m, we are reimagining the museum into a vibrant, regionally significant cultural hub. With ambition, scope and exceptional quality, this redevelopment sets the stage for driving meaningful change through cultural, heritage and creative initiatives. At the heart of our offer is a commitment to Learning and Engagement, creating lasting impact and helping our communities thrive.

In this new role, you will recruit and guide a team of engagement and learning leads delivering community engagement activities and you'll oversee our learning team to develop and deliver our learning offer. Initially a 12month fixed term contract, you will have the opportunity to review the service area and contribute to the long-term sustainability of Poole Museum (www.poolemuseum.org.uk).

Main Responsibilities 

• Provide leadership for the learning and engagement programmes and budget
• Develop learning and practice curricula to create a highly engaging, creative and effective learning experience for all ages and abilities, local residents and visitors alike
• Instigate, design and deliver engaging learning events drawing inspiration from our exhibitions, public programming, communities, heritage & environment
• Using specialist knowledge and skills, curate the resources content
• Work with broader council/statutory services to develop a social impact framework of creative initiatives
• Collaboratively work with funders and other stakeholders in a way that inspires collective learning and action
• Ensure that activity connects community groups to each other for mutual learning and best practice development
• Develop and maintain a network of practitioners/learning specialists to contribute to learning events and resources, which directly contribute to the success of the service and income generation
• Contribute to shaping strategic direction generating income generation, bidding for contracts and improving organisational efficiency via data and service user feedback.

The Ideal Candidate

You are a self-motivated team member who is committed to equality, diversity and inclusion. Team spirit and excellence runs throughout everything you do from timely communication with colleagues, to the satisfaction of a job well done when supporting learners and building relationships.

You are a natural people-connector and your interest in education, culture and sustainability is evident, as is your willingness to develop your service into something transformational. We are looking for a candidate with great energy and a passion for supporting a fast-moving new opportunity, someone who enjoys a challenge and looks for innovative or creative ways to make things work. We hope to meet someone who believes in the ethos of our museum, energised by the learning potential in everything we do and can demonstrate:

• experience in cross-sector working and multi-audience learning
• expertise in setting professional standards, setting income targets, and enhancing visitor experiences
• expertise in implementing strategy
• ability and curiosity to undertake research and keep abreast of external initiatives relevant to the role
• experience in cultivating excellent relationships
• a desire to work with the wider Museum team to develop an internal culture of innovation, continuous learning and reflection.
• a management qualification (or equivalent experience) who enjoys developing a team

About BCP Council

BCP Council provides services to a diverse community of 400,000 residents and employs more than 5,000 people. Our area includes over 15 miles of beautiful world-renowned coastline. We can offer career defining roles to transform and improve services. By working with us, you can help deliver a vision of a thriving, world-class, prosperous and inclusive place for generations to come.

Our Benefits

We offer an excellent benefits package to colleagues. Find out more on our website

As a result of the creation of BCP Council in 2019, we are working on simplifying our terms and conditions of service and will be creating a single pay structure which is to be applicable for all employees. It is important to us that we offer benefits that our colleagues value as part of their total employment package and we are reviewing these to make sure we have it

right. We have been in a process of collective bargaining since 2019 and have positively worked forward to reach an agreed position with the unions for the new contractual offer. This has taken longer than we hoped and therefore we are having to consider all alternative avenues available to enable us to remove inequality in the organisation as a result of bringing together 3 councils.

We are in the process of establishing a timescale for implementation, and all colleagues joining us will be included in these changes. We want to reassure everyone that whichever route is taken to reach the new terms and conditions, we can honour continuous service and there will not be any job reduction as a result of the implementation of Pay and Reward. If you have any questions at all about this process, please feel free to raise this with the hiring manager.

Attached documents:

• Learning and Engagement Lead Job Description_Person Specification.pdf - BCP Council Learning and Engagement Officer Full Job Description