Chief Education Officer (CEdO)

Location: Reading

Salary: Competitive

Start date: 1st September 2024

Closing date: 5th February 2024

Shortlist: 7th February 2024

Interviews: Wednesday February 21st and Thursday 22nd February 2024

We are delighted that you are expressing an interest in the Chief Education Officer (CEdO) role at Activate Learning Education Trust. ALET is a multi-academy trust established by Activate Learning in 2015. 

We ‘Transform Lives Through Learning’ by providing exciting and innovative education for young people by looking at how we learn as well as what we learn. The Trust is currently made up of six schools – two comprehensive schools and four University Technical Colleges (UTCs) and is run with the support of a number of industry and academic partners.

We are a family of schools united by our vision, mission and values, which are to ‘Transform Lives Through Learning’ by igniting confidence, expanding opportunities, energising the community and generating prosperity. Through our Learning Philosophy and core values of empowerment, enterprise, connectedness and transformation, we will provide our students and staff with a safe and supportive environment in which to thrive.

Our Trust structure has been evolving to expand our central leadership capacity as our financial security grows, adding a full time CEO role in 2019, and moving to an Executive Principal and Head of School structure in 2022. The time is now right to expand further, adding a Chief Education Officer to focus on our core business of delivering high quality education, whilst supporting the CEO with a focus on the external growth and reputation of the Trust. 

This role will have huge importance and influence on the strategic direction of the Trust, and on the personal development of a number of key staff to deliver high quality education and school improvement, for the benefit of all our varied stakeholders. We are starting to look forwards to our next strategic plan and shaping this as well as driving continuous improvement in teaching and learning standards, school improvement at a macro level, and providing robust quality assurance, will be key focuses of the role. 

You will find more information on the specific deliverables in the job description, but the main desired impacts of adding this role to our central leadership are:

• Building capacity in the Executive Team to deliver rapid school improvement (all schools achieving strong academic & destination outcomes, and achieving good or better from OFSTED), which impacts positively on student and staff recruitment
• A high quality and robust quality assurance model, which indicates concerns early enough to resolve quickly
• Strong line management structures, including planned training and development for senior and executive leadership, so that we have a fully accountable team, ready to drive and support growth by adding new schools to the Trust
• Improving collaboration at senior and executive levels, leading to improved outcomes for stakeholders
• Enabling a more outward focus in local communities, with other MATs, and with local and regional stakeholders including Regional Directors, ESFA so as to improve reputation

Our current strategic plan (2020-2025) focuses on three key pillars:

• Employer of Choice: by being an organisation known for its clear purpose, an unrelenting focus on ‘transforming lives through learning’, and by being known as an employer who cares about their staff development and wellbeing
• School of Choice: by focusing on uncompromising high standards achieved through our Learning Philosophy, and by providing a variety of educational opportunities for students, from primary through to Post-16 and beyond with our wider college group and employer network
• Provider of Choice: by knowing that employers choose to engage with our Trust as they recognise and value the quality of education and skills, by taking opportunities to influence the skills, knowledge and attributes of the next generation of employees, and by knowing that our schools have strong commitments to work-based learning and this is reflected in all staff taking deliberate actions to embrace and embed our attributes in the student’s curriculum experience

Everything we do aims to Transform Lives Through Learning. Our Trust thinks differently by focusing on preparation for successful lives and careers; we just happen to deliver qualifications. If you would relish the challenge to help shape the next phase of our successful Trust, we would very much welcome your application.  

We would be delighted to hear from you. Please contact our recruitment partner Caroline Olsen at Academicis to have a confidential conversation and to find out more about this excellent opportunity. Caroline’s contact details are available on the back page of the candidate pack.