Chief Operating Officer
Ardingly College Senior
West Sussex
- Expired
- Salary:
- Competitive
- Job type:
- Full Time, Permanent
- Apply by:
- 1 June 2022
Job overview
Ardingly College is one of Sussex’s top-performing all-through day and boarding schools. Providing a rich and contemporary educational experience for girls and boys aged 2–18, the College has established an ambitious and warm environment where students flourish academically and experience an educational offer designed so they leave the College ‘World Ready’. With an annual turnover of £23m, Ardingly College is looking to appoint an inaugural COO to play a key leadership role in helping to position the College for a continued successful future.
Founded in 1858 and part of the Woodard Corporation, Ardingly College is on a strong upward trajectory. The College has invested heavily in its site and infrastructure, and – following a restructure which will launch in September 2022 – the College can look to the future with confidence.
The appointee will offer significant generalist leadership and management experience gained in complex, multi-stakeholder settings. Additionally, he or she will evidence outstanding strategic abilities with the people skills to hold in balance the priorities of a highly capable and well-qualified operations community. Energetic, collaborative, and purposeful, the new COO will possess excellent relationship-building skills and will work closely with the Head and Governors, as well as Senior Academic and Operations Staff. A personal ethos of service is essential, as well as a willingness to inspire, further develop and support teams in the pursuit of excellence. Applications are encouraged from existing COOs or Bursars from within the education sector, as well as candidates with commercial, charitable, private-sector and public-sector backgrounds.
Ardingly College is partnering with the executive search firm Perrett Laver, and a search exercise is being undertaken alongside the public advertisement of this post. Perrett Laver will support the College in identifying a wide and diverse field of suitable candidates and will assist in the assessment of candidates against the requirements for the role.
Candidates should submit a full Curriculum Vitae (including comprehensive details of key achievements and responsibilities) and a covering letter which fully addresses the competencies outlined in the job description and person specification. Candidates should also complete the application form in full.
Completed applications should be uploaded at: https://candidates.perrettlaver.com/vacancies/ quoting reference number 5819.
Closing date: 8:30 am BST on Wednesday 1st June 2022.
Ardingly College is committed to safeguarding and promoting the welfare of children and young people and the Council of Governors expects all staff and volunteers to share this commitment. The successful candidate must be willing to undergo child protection screening appropriate to the post.
The College is committed to the principle of equal opportunities in employment and in equal pay for work of the same or similar nature or work of equal value. The College understands that a robust, fair and transparent recruitment and selection policy plays a central role in achieving this aim. Our full equal opportunities policy is available in the Policy documents section of our website.
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About Ardingly College Senior
Ardingly College is a successful and modern co-educational school in a beautiful and traditional school setting in West Sussex.
The Prep School has over 200 pupils from Reception to Year 6, as well as a Nursery. Reception and KS1 are based in the Farmhouse and Years 3–6 in the main school building, School House. The Prep School lives and breathes the values of Shaping My World, through which primary-aged children learn to explore the world around them in ways that are adventurous, curious, generous, and ingenious.
The Senior School has over 800 students from 11 to 18, 300 of whom are boarders. The school puts the values of Collaboration, Compassion, Engagement and Resilience at the heart of its education and strives to help its students to become ready for the next stage of their lives beyond school in a programme known as World Ready. Students are drawn from the South-East and London as well as abroad, and a modest but growing endowment supports a bursary programme for talented students with limited financial means. In recent years, the College has educated half a dozen Ukrainian and Afghan refugee children free of charge.
The wellbeing and welfare of our students is paramount, with a strong emphasis on pastoral support provided through house staff, the Health & Wellbeing Centre, the Chaplain, the DSL and the Mental Health Lead. In the most recent ISI inspection of educational quality in 2018, the College was judged excellent for both student achievement and personal development, and in 2021, the College passed all elements of the Regulatory Compliance Inspection.
The curriculum is designed to be broad and stimulating, with over 25 subjects offered and a choice of A Level, IB Diploma or BTEC courses in the Sixth Form. Academic results are high and have been on an upward trajectory since 2015. Results in 2023 surpassed those achieved by the pre-pandemic 2019 cohort, with 90% of Sixth Form candidates achieving grades between A* and B at A Level, or 7–5 in the IB Diploma. At GCSE, two-thirds achieved between grades 9 and 7, with 48% scoring all 9s and 8s. All except a small handful of leavers progress to one of their top choices of university, with between five and eight each year to Oxbridge.
The College offers an outstanding range of co-curricular activities based on inclusive participation as well as excellence. In sports, students compete successfully at local, regional, and national levels in the main sports of football, hockey, swimming, netball, cricket, and athletics. Music, Art, Drama and Dance are equally thriving, with exciting programme of concerts, performances and exhibitions. In this, as in all ways, the school aims to live up to one of its mantras that nobody can excel in everything, but everyone can excel in something.
Local and global partnerships are integral to the College’s mission. Every week, hundreds of Ardingly pupils participate in an active voluntary service programme with the local community and primary schools, and the College sustains a STEM partnership with Ifield Community College, which was awarded the TES STEM project of the year in 2020. Internationally, the College opened its first overseas school in China in 2020 and is currently planning towards further schools in Kazakhstan and other geographies.
Campus facilities are excellent, with considerable recent investment in the College campus bringing it up to the highest school standards. Recent additions include a new STEM faculty and upgrades to classrooms, as well as major refurbishments of boarding and day houses. A new café and dance studio were opened in 2021 and new Lower School and a third day boys’ house in 2022.
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