Head of Schools
- Recruiter
- Bookmark Reading Charity
- Location
-
London
South East EnglandUnited Kingdom
- Salary
- 45,000 – 50,000
- Posted
- 18 Nov 2021
- Closes
- 16 Dec 2021
- Job Title
- Director
- Category
- Scientific and Pharmaceutical
- Contract Type
- Permanent
- Hours
- Full Time
Do you want to join a company with ambitious plans to make a social impact? Each year, eight children in an average class will leave primary school unable to read well. These children often struggle in school, and beyond. Reading isn't just about books. It's about reading a road sign, a safety manual, a birthday card. It's understanding a job application and the prescription that could help save your life. When a child can navigate words, they can navigate the world. That's why we're helping children develop the reading skills they need to succeed by creating flexible volunteering at the heart of our communities. The Bookmark app matches schools with fully safeguarded, vetted and trained reading volunteers in the local community, at the tap of a button. Each volunteer delivers one–to–one reading sessions for a six–week programme with a child who needs extra help with their reading. We are a small but growing team of hard–working people, who care about what we do. We love to roll up our sleeves, try new ways of doing things, and support each other so that we can achieve our goals. If that sounds like you and you share our vision and values, we'd love to hear from you.
As our Head of Schools, you will sit on the Senior Leadership Team and be accountable for the strategy of attraction, recruitment and retention of schools to our programme. You will also be accountable for strategic relationships with local authorities and Multi Academy Trusts, as well as other partners, so we can support as many children as possible.
We're looking for a proactive self starter who is keen to make a real impact in a growing organisation. You will already have 3+ years experience in a senior growth, sales, account management or similar position, as well as a proven track record of meeting, and leading a team to meet, sales targets. You will have robust experience of building successful commercial relationships and strategic partnerships, as well as proven experience of marketing campaigns, and representing an organisation at a senior level. We are looking for someone who is confident in their professional practice, ideally with education sector experience.
JOB DESCRIPTION
School attraction, engagement and account management
- To establish a three–year strategy that attracts, recruits and retains active schools in Bookmark's reading programme, meeting our ambitious targets so that we can support more children.
- Accountable for the development and maintenance of a comprehensive working database of schools on our CRM platform, recording key attainment data and agreed performance metrics (with the support from Bookmark's School Business Development Manager).
- Use the database to drive intelligence for each regions, which will then inform our tactical approach.
- Lead on activity, with the support of the School Business Development Manager, to create a termly focused recruitment plan for each academic year to meet our in–year targets, identifying growth opportunities.
- Owning the school partner customer journey, from lead capture to conversion, and repeat customers; using analytics to understand and improve this journey.
- To be accountable for the development and management of key strategic relationships e.g. Multi Academy Trusts, key stakeholders within a local authority, English Hubs etc.
- To lead initial and ongoing engagement events with prospective local authorities, schools and Multi Academy Trusts in support of Bookmark's strategic growth plans.
- To be an ambassador for Bookmark at regional and national events, to promote our work and attract new partner schools.
- To review the impact of our programme per school, region and nationally, working alongside our Impact team in order to identify continuous improvement opportunities to Bookmark's offer, ROI and associated marketing campaigns.
- To work in collaboration with the Marketing team to ensure that campaigns are delivered on time, to brand standard and meet the charity's ROI objective.
- Responsible for setting and meeting target sales targets, revenue reporting and forecasting for the school pipeline.
General responsibilities
- Proactively identify opportunities to improve Bookmark's processes across all areas.
- Articulate the benefits and value of partnering with Bookmark to prospective school entities (e.g. Multi Academy Trusts) and other organisations.
- Accountable for Key Performance Indicators relating to school attraction, school target to onboard each month, school activeness (i.e. programmes posted through an academic year) and school satisfaction
- Identify and lead on collaborations and partnerships with other organisations that align with our vision and values to support more children and support us to achieve our aims.
- Input and maintain accurate and up–to–date information on our systems, including Salesforce CRM and SharePoint.
- Ensure that all activity helps to build Bookmark's brand and is always brand compliant.
- Line manage Bookmark's School Business Development Manager, School Relationship Manager Team Leader(s), and Impact and Evaluation Officer, ensuring clear objectives are set and that they are motivated, engaged, supported and developed to achieve their objectives.
- Work closely with the Head of Volunteering to ensure the charity has a sufficient supply of volunteers to meet our partner school needs
PERSON SPECIFICATION
- Passionate about our vision and mission.
- Experience working with or in schools in a sales or account manager role is preferable.
- Robust understanding of CRM platforms and Excel.
- Proven track record of meeting sales targets.
- Experience of building and managing high performing, target driven teams.
- Excellent communication skills, both verbal and written, inc. strong presentational skills.
- Ability to facilitate challenging conversations in a professional manner.
- Adept at positive stakeholder engagement across a variety of audiences.
- Service delivery focussed with a desire to achieve targets and objectives.
- Strong time management and organisational skills.
- Structured problem–solving approach with excellent attention to detail.
- Ability to travel locally for business and work flexibly.
- Proficient in Microsoft Office suite (particularly Word, PowerPoint and Excel).
- Technically literate with ability to support less–technically minded stakeholders. • Salesforce and / or SharePoint experience desirable.
Bookmark is committed to promoting a diverse and inclusive community. We aim to create a working environment in which all individuals are able to make best use of their skills, free from discrimination or harassment, and in which all decisions are based on merit. We offer a range of family friendly, inclusive employment policies and opportunity for flexible working arrangements to support team members from different backgrounds. Help us change the story for more children.
The starting salary range for this role is GBP45,000 to GBP50,000 (with the opportunity for performance related bonus), depending on experience. Please apply by completing an application form and emailing it to . CV applications alone will be disregarded. This is a flexible working opportunity, provided you can commute to our London office for team meetings.