Education Officer - Virtual School Post 16

How you'll make a difference:

Supporting young people aged 16+, you will help them with the transition into further education. Working with education and training providers, you will ensure their needs are met and give them the best opportunity to be successful in their adult lives.

The Virtual School works in partnership with children or young people in their school/education setting to ensure they are supported to fulfil their potential at all stages of their education.

What you will be doing:

• You will be responsible for all aspects of education, employment and training for looked after children and care leavers in years 12 and 13.
• It will be your responsibility to maintain oversight and manage the post 16 Personal Education Plan for looked after children.
• Daily, you will be responsible for the educational oversight of a cohort of looked after children and care leavers.
• It will be key for you to assist the transition from secondary school to post 16 by supporting students in year 11 to ensure they have suitable destinations in year 12.
• Working across multi-agency teams including health and social care, you will ensure that a young person’s needs are understood and met with regards to education.

What we need from you:

• You must either be NVQ4 qualified or equivalent in an education and/or social care or be working towards a relevant qualification in the provision of services to young people.
• We require you to have experience of working with vulnerable and looked-after young people and have the knowledge and understanding of key issues affecting them and what works in improving education, employment and training outcomes.
• Given the elements of the role, it will be key for you to have proven supervisory skills and experience of allocating work to others and monitoring performance.
• In this role you will need a good level of IT skills and the ability to use or be trained in the use of appropriate software packages.
• You must have well-developed interpersonal and communication skills to build relationships and engage successfully with colleagues, service users and partner organisations.

• This is a part-time role, working 23.5 hours per week. Your salary will be pro-rated to hours worked.
• This is a one-year limited term contract, ending February 2026.
• This role is hybrid, with a mixture of working at our office and working from home.

• You will be expected to travel throughout the authority and surrounding area so you must have a full, valid driving licence with regular access to a vehicle or have an alternative means of travel.
• We are also offering this as an internal secondment opportunity, you should first seek your line managers permission before applying.

Interviews will be held on Monday 3rd February 2025.

• As part of our benefits package, you will receive generous annual leave (pro rata), employee wellbeing support and you will have access to a range of staff discounts, including eye tests, travel, shopping and leisure activities.
• We recognise that our diverse team of skilled and dedicated people make us a great place to work. We welcome applications from everyone and ensure that individuals are selected, promoted and developed on the basis of their merits and abilities.
• We know our team work best when they have balance in their lives, and we offer genuine flexibility to help them achieve that work/life balance.
• We invest in the careers of our people, and we are recognised for the quality, breadth and depth of our training and development offer, which helps our people make the greatest long-term difference in their work.
• What’s special here is the strength of the team ethos, the support and the training.
• We are committed to safeguarding and promoting the safety and welfare of children, young people and vulnerable adults. Ensuring all our staff are given right skills, knowledge and support to recognise and respond effectively to potential abuse or neglect.

• We're building and shaping communities which people are proud of.
• We're working with the most vulnerable in our community to help them achieve what they want in life.
• We're investing in our schools to ensure every child and young person in South Gloucestershire achieves their full potential.

We've achieved a great deal, but we need talented and dedicated people to ensure we continue to make a difference.

We’re making a difference, be part of it!

To view the full job description, please click this link: Education Officer - Virtual School - Job Description