Senior Office Manager

Job start date: 1 April 2025  

Hours per week: 36.5 all year round  

Washwood Heath Academy
Burney Lane
Birmingham
B8 2AS
Telephone number: 0121 675 7272

Contact email: enquiry@washwood.academy

Contract type: Permanent

Are you an experienced and motivated administrative professional looking for an exciting leadership opportunity?

Washwood Heath Academy is seeking a highly skilled Senior Office Manager to lead and manage our administration team in a fast-paced and dynamic school environment.

Washwood Heath Academy is looking to appoint a suitably qualified, hard-working, and enthusiastic Senior Office Manager to lead and manage the Administration team by being a professional, effective and efficient Senior Office Manager.

Washwood Heath Academy is an increasingly successful school at the heart of the community. We offer students a wide range of support to enable them to succeed. Ofsted say we are ‘a school for everyone’ and we had our best results ever in August 2024. You can be a crucial part of our commitment to helping pupils achieve the best possible results as we are looking for a Senior Office Manager to lead the operational function of the Administration team to ensure the provision of an effective, efficient day-to-day service. You will work under the direct supervision of the PA to Headteacher/Administration Support Services Manager to provide excellent leadership and management to a large, established administration team.

You should have excellent IT skills and Arbor experience, be well organised, have a professional approach to work and be able to prioritise workloads to meet critical deadlines. Excellent communication skills, both oral and written, are also an essential part of the role to be able to deal with staff, students, parents, external agencies, and all other stakeholders. An ability to multitask is essential and you should be able to demonstrate in depth your knowledge of how the administration functions support the whole academy community and how the business function contributes to the Academy’s success.

The successful candidate will already have experience of leading and managing a large administration department, and have extensive experience of Microsoft Office, Arbor and should be able to provide evidence that you have the skills, knowledge and understanding to become a Senior Office Manager at our Academy.

In return, we will offer you:

- a collaborative and inclusive culture, where team members will upskill you and give you regular opportunities to learn from each other in a safe and collaborative environment

- an opportunity to undertake structured CPD via access to the National College online CPD platform and/or apprenticeships such as [the CIPD or Coaching via our Apprenticeship Levy-amend examples based on roles]

- access to Career Pathways and Pledge to help you plan for and make your goals a reality via our Professional Growth and Performance process

- a wellbeing culture, with paid and unpaid time off to support life events via our Life Leave Policy, access to a Wellbeing Champion and the opportunity to participate in our annual staff wellbeing survey with Edurio, so we know and can respond to views

- access to 24/7 Employee Assistance Programme (EAP), which includes confidential counselling, access to wellbeing advice and a lifestyle app called “My Possible Self”

- access to a suite of supportive policies, such as Life Leave, Wellbeing, Career Break and Family Friendly

- access to a generous pension scheme known as the Local Government Pension Scheme (LGPS)

- access to a comprehensive employee rewards package including Long Service Awards, Employee Referral Scheme, Cycle to Work Scheme and contribution to glasses and eye-sight tests for eligible display screen users

- opportunity to be part of key Trust-wide collaborative groups such as the Equality, Diversity and Inclusion (EDI working group) and Wellbeing working groups, including menopause support and neurodiversity support

- generous annual leave entitlement based on length of service, starting at 30 days pro-rata, rising to 33 at 5 years’ plus service and 35 following 10 years’ plus service. This excludes an additional 2-week paid compulsory closure at Christmas, for which additional days’ leave are gained

- onsite parking at all schools

Informal conversations are warmly welcomed.

We are also “happy to talk flexible working” subject to the operational requirements of the role.

This post is covered by Part 7 of the Immigration Act (2016). Therefore the ability to speak fluent and spoken English is an essential requirement for this role.

How to apply:

Please apply via MyNewTerm

N.B. CVs will not be accepted.

We reserve the right to close this vacancy early if we receive sufficient applications for the role. Therefore, if you are interested, please submit your application as early as possible.

We value our people and are dedicated to making sure that everybody feels empowered to bring their authentic self to work.

We promise to treat all candidates fairly, consistently and with respect throughout the application, assessment, and selection process.

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

All applicants will be required to provide two suitable references.  

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

This post is not part of the City Council and the successful candidate will not hold a Birmingham City Council Contract of Employment.  

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.