Director of Education

Start date: 1 April 2025 (or in discussion with the appointed candidate)

Forward Education Trust

Contact email: martin.blair@hays.com

Contract type: Permanent  

You will have the expertise to be a force for improvement, the personal attributes to secure buy-in from others and a deep-rooted belief that collaboration is the cornerstone of a strong trust.

Forward Education Trust (FET) is an established and developing MAT of 7 special schools in Birmingham, Solihull and Sandwell. We are seeking to appoint our new Director of Education and are looking for a highly credible trust leader, with knowledge and experience of SEND, who wants the challenge of helping to take our Trust forward, by ensuring that our children and young people receive the very best education & care, so that they achieve everything they possibly can as they move through their education into independent adult lives. We believe our Trust is at an exciting inflection point. We have all the ingredients to be an exceptional Trust.

The Trust believes that its staff and leaders are its most important asset and that valuing them and utilising their many talents will deliver the best experiences for pupils. The strategic role of Director of Education involves drawing out and developing all that is best within our very different schools, as we build a shared culture of excellence, managing the Trust’s school improvement offer, overseeing curriculum development and developing an increasingly coherent staff training programme. Our Trust’s educational priorities are rooted in commitment to inclusive, accessible education.

The Director of Education will collaborate with Headteachers and leaders in our schools and across our Trust, with external educators, and other stakeholders to drive excellence and align educational practices with our mission and strategic aims.

As a member of the Trust Executive team, the Director of Education has executive responsibility for the school improvement aspect of the Trust. The postholder will also be the Trust’s Deputy CEO and the Trust DSL.

You will be empowered to make decisions and to be creative. You will lead supportive and well-established collaborative networks in our Trust, where colleagues work together, and we learn from each other. The Trust will have a real interest in your future and will be keen to explore ways that you can develop personally and professionally. Our Trust Board is very supportive, it has many passionate and committed trustees, from a variety of backgrounds, who support Executive and school leaders to achieve their very best.

The successful candidate will be an exemplary school leader, teacher and role model with broad leadership experience, which may include working in special education. We are looking for a candidate with a proven track record of implementing sustained school improvement. A knowledge of teaching pupils with complex learning difficulties and of having worked with different age groups would be useful, but above all, you must be ambitious for all learners, whatever their additional needs. You must have the ability to initiate and lead change in a positive way which makes a real difference to learning and, share each of our school’s commitment to ensuring the students are safe and happy and achieve their full potential. Working in a supportive Trust environment must be central to your thinking, helping school leaders to receive and give capacity to the wider network of schools.

Contact Martin Blair at Hays Leadership for a confidential discussion, to arrange a visit to some of our schools, to discuss making an application or to arrange an informal conversation with the Trust’s CEO, Simon Dilkes, the Trust’s Chair, Kate Canty or other representatives of our Trust Board.

Forward Education Trust value equality and diversity and are committed to safeguarding and promoting the welfare of children and young people and expects all staff and volunteers to share this commitment. 

How to Apply

Please apply online

This school is committed to safeguarding and promoting the welfare of children and expect all staff and to share this commitment. The successful candidate will be subject to all necessary pre-employment checks, including: an enhanced DBS; Prohibition check; Childcare Disqualification (where applicable); qualifications (where applicable); medical fitness; identity and right to work.  All applicants will be required to provide two suitable references. 

Applicants please note: This post is not part of the City Council and the successful candidate will not hold a Birmingham City Council Contract of Employment. Please use the contact details in the advert for information on actual employment conditions.

Rehabilitation of offenders: This post is exempt from the Rehabilitation of Offenders Act 1974 and the amendments to the Exceptions Order 1975, 2013 and 2020. Which means that when applying for certain jobs and activities certain spent convictions and cautions are ‘protected’, so they do not need to be disclosed to employers, and if they are disclosed, employers cannot take them into account. Further information about filtering offences can be found in the DBS filtering guide.

An online search will also be carried out as part of due diligence on all short-listed candidates.