Director of Learning and Development

Academies Enterprise Trust (AET) was formed in 2008, and currently supports a national network of 63 primary, special and secondary academies, making it the largest multi academy trust (MAT) in the country. The organisation educates 35,000 children across England. 

The Trust has an annual budget in the region of £230 million, and employs almost 6000 people. MATs are a core part of the Government’s educational agenda and AET is seen as a key organisation in delivering this agenda. This is therefore a significant opportunity for an educationalist to have a real impact on the English educational landscape, and with it, the lives of thousands of children across the country. 

The Trust is committed to providing a great educational experience for the children it serves, whatever their ability or background, and seeks to operate schools of which the students, their families and the local community can be proud. A third of AET's academies are located in the top 20% most deprived areas in England for child poverty. After a period of poor educational performance and financial instability a new Chair, Jack Boyer OBE joined the organisation and started a significant turnaround programme in 2016. 

Julian Drinkall (CEO), started in January 2017 and with the support of the Board, the Department for Education and the ESFA, has already taken momentous steps forward in transforming the Trust. The Executive Team has been strengthened more recently with the appointment of three high;y experienced and successful educationalist. 

The new Director of Learning and Development will work alongside the National Director of Education to lead on the delivery of the people development strategy across the Trust's academies. Whilst the current focus of the Trust is on implementing a change agenda to raise standards, AET has ambitions to be the employer of choice in the education sector. The new team of Trustees and Executives are totally dedicated to improving the educational offering for children in every school; there is no doubt that this is a hugely exciting time to be joining the Trust.

Background

AET is seeking an outstanding and innovative education leader to fill an exciting new role leading our People Development Strategy. The successful candidate will have a strong track record of delivering excellence in leadership development and teacher education.

Developing great leaders and educators lies at the heart of the Trust’s mission and our challenge is to develop the highly motivated and skilled teachers and leaders who can enable our children and young people to thrive and achieve the best they can regardless of location and starting point.  

As a key member of the AET Central Support Services you will have overall responsibility for:

• Work with National Directors, professional Chairs of Governing Boards, System Leaders and Principals, and our various partner organisations to lead on implementation of our people stratrgy for systematically improving the quality of leadership and teaching across all our academies
• The design, delivery and quality assurance of the AET programme for initial teacher training and wider professional development programmes
• Ensuring our leaders and teachers are the best across the system and nationally
• Working effectively with AET Schools’ talent and recruitment team and other partners in order to secure a rich source of skills and expertise into the organisation
• Leading on the design and delivery of the AET performance management, career development and succession planning processes
• Enabling AET to operate at the forefront of national and international developments in leadership and teacher development

We are ambitious to ensure that AET becomes a national and international leader in leadership and teacher recruitment, education and retention. Our new Director of leader and teacher development will bring together our work in Initial Teacher Training and Professional Development and will be responsible for further refining and delivering on our people strategy in 63 schools. 

This position is required to commence in September 2018 (or earlier if possible)

Closing date: Friday 13 April 2018

If you would like an informal conversation about the role please contact Frances Soul (National Director of Education) at fsoul@academiesenterprisetrust.org 

We reserve the right to close this vacancy early should we receive an overwhelming response.  All candidates are advised to refer to the job description and person specification before making an application.

For further information on this position and to make an application please click 'quick apply' on the TES advert.

We are committed to safeguarding and protecting the welfare of children and expect all staff and volunteers to share this commitment.  A Disclosure and Barring Service Certificate will be required for all posts. This post will be subject to enhanced checks as part of our Prevent Duty.