Virtual School Advisory Teacher WCC618671

Job Details:

Salary range: £40,005 - £54,135 per annum
Work location: Westminster City Hall, 64 Victoria Street, Westminster, SW1E 6QP
Hours per week: 36 
Contract type: Permanent
Vetting requirements: Enhanced DBS Check  
Closing date: 25 October 2024.
Interview date: Week commencing 4 November 2024
Contact details for Informal discussion: Natalie Stephenson, Bi-Borough Head of Virtual School, via email: NSTEPHENSON@WESTMINSTER.GOV.UK 

About Us:

THE EXTRAORDINARY STORY OF SHOFA’S MARKET 

Children’s Services in Westminster City Council is a world of extraordinary stories. Where courageous and inspiring professionals bring everything to their work. 

Sometimes this even includes heartbreak. Shofa is a shining example. Shofa’s brother suffered with his mental health and died tragically young. She uses his memory as motivation to give Westminster Youth Council members the opportunity to have a voice and get involved in decision making. This passion resulted in in her innovation: The Westminster Youth Market. Here local teenagers learn about entrepreneurship and develop their personal skills. This is an inclusive platform where everyone’s contribution and abilities are celebrated. Inspired by a promising life cut short, Shofa believes without vision there is no direction and every young person should be supported to realise their dreams. 

The Role:

As an Advisory Teacher with our Virtual School, you’ll support and advise school leaders, social workers and staff as you help them identify educational barriers to children in care. Working to develop strategies to improve educational attainment and delivering high quality training and support, you’ll ensure statutory duties and best practice standards are met. We’ll also expect you to use a high level of technical knowledge in relation to all aspects of education, including SEN, exclusions and behaviour management.

In detail, your work will involve providing intensive educational casework for a designated cohort of children and young people, and delivering the education vision for our Virtual School. Ensuring high quality personal education plans are in place, and each child is receiving appropriate support, you’ll also work directly with children and young people to ensure that their educational needs are being met. This will include observation, mentoring and tuition, and would involve travelling to wherever our children are placed.

But your work won’t stop here – you’ll also develop positive and effective relationships with schools, leaders and teachers, and help to maintain the data for tracking pupil progress. We’ll also expect you to support the development and delivery of cross-service training for school staff, carers and social workers to raise awareness of the diverse educational needs and complex circumstances of looked after children.

Please refer to the Job Description for more information.

About You:

With a minimum of a 2.2 degree, qualified teacher status, and well developed knowledge of relevant education and social care legislation and  policy relating to children in public care, you’ll have worked for at least two years in a mainstream teaching post with experience of two or more key stages of education. Your inspirational communication and presentation skills will allow you build excellent relationships with a diverse group of clients and professionals, and you’ll be ready to use your superb organisational skills to prioritise a challenging workload.

Capable of identifying and recording childrens’ progress, you’ll be an experienced user of IT systems, a confident report writer and possess a strong understanding of relevant theory and research. A motivating team member with a non-judgemental and reflective approach to your work, you’ll have a good understanding of children’s development and be able to produce evidence of continuing professional development. A champion for children and with the    courage to positively challenge school practice where it falls short, we’ll also expect you to have experience of implementing successful school improvement strategies.

Join us, and you can look forward to a package that includes a competitive salary, a high-quality pension scheme and generous annual leave plus bank holidays. And as a key member of our team, you’ll also have plenty of opportunities for development and progression within our organisation. We’re committed to promoting equality and respecting diversity, and welcome applications from all sections of the community. We’re a Disability Confident Employer – committed to ensuring that our recruitment and selection process is inclusive and accessible.

What We Offer:

Westminster is an amazing place. We are home to more than 200,000 residents from all backgrounds, over 50,000 vibrant and vital businesses and three-quarters-of-a-million people work in Westminster. Westminster City Council’s strategy is to work towards a Fairer Westminster. A Fairer Westminster is one in which our communities are at the heart of our decision-making and help to determine the city’s future. By working directly with our communities and other partners, we can build a more inclusive city that celebrates our diverse communities, and where residents, workers and visitors from all backgrounds will feel welcome and safe.

At Westminster City Council, we pride ourselves on being an inclusive workplace and employer of choice. We encourage and welcome applications from people from all backgrounds and aim to have a workforce that, at all levels, represents the communities we serve. We champion equality, diversity, inclusion and wellbeing and aim to create a workplace where everyone feels valued, has a sense of belonging and is empowered to be their best, that is the Westminster Way. To find out more about how we do this visit https://www.westminster.gov.uk/health-and-social-care/public-health-strategy-policies-and-reports/equality-duties

As a forward thinking Council we appreciate that people work in different ways, therefore our staff benefit from working a range of flexible working patterns as well as Agile working.

The Council is a Disability Confident Employer. If you have declared a disability in your application , we guarantee an interview if you meet the essential criteria of the job. If you are invited for interview, you will be asked if you need any reasonable adjustments in order to attend, and we will make these wherever possible.