Kingston Cluster SEND School Improvement Lead

Appointment Type: Fixed Term - 18 months

Hours: Average one day per week - 7.2 hours

Closing Date: 27/01/2025

Primary Place of Work: Guildhall 2, Kingston upon Thames KT1

Salary shown is full time equivalent and will be pro-rated accordingly

We are seeking to appoint an experienced education senior leader who has extensive SEND knowledge and experience to help us establish and lead a cluster based model of mainstream schools, developing early intervention and support for children and young people with SEND.

Achieving for Children (providing Children's Services for Kingston Council) in partnership with Kingston schools is establishing a cluster pilot across a group of six - eight local schools to set up and then lead a one year pilot to devolve SEND funding and resources to schools in the pilot. You will work alongside local headteachers, SENDCos and SEND Service leaders to establish outcomes for the pilot, expectations for schools in the pilot, processes and systems and how learning will be evaluated.

We are looking for an enthusiastic and experienced education leader who is interested in this innovative project to help us set the pilot up and then lead the locality activity.

By carefully leading the local school SENDCos you will ensure that funding is distributed fairly within the locality and explore innovative and creative ways of using resources within the group of schools to support early intervention, collaboration between schools and best value for money. This could be by employing specialists to work across schools, training activities, or setting up cross-school groups to tackle emerging needs.

About the role

Key responsibilities

Spring term 2025 - Establish the pilot by:

• Working with the Cluster Task and Finish group to set up the pilot model, including school membership, processes for referral and pilot activity
• Working with the senior educational psychologist to agree clear outcomes and evaluation methods for the pilot
• Working with members of the working group to agree processes for terms of reference for meetings, referrals routes and expectations for the SENDCos to develop pilot activity

From April 2025 - Lead the pilot by:

• Being the point of contact for SENCos within the locality and the Local Authority in the dissemination of information across the locality group of Schools.
• Coordinate locality schools’ moderation to enable the allocation of Locality Additional Needs Funds (LAN).
• Ensuring that there is moderation of financial requests made to the High Level Needs (HLN) funding panel, as well as of any emergency HLN requests, and check the list sent from HLN panel prior to each HLN funding panel meeting.
• Ensuring that termly Locality SENDCo meetings take place.
• Contribute to SEND Strategy network events and/or delivery groups
• Coordinate the delivery of locality schools’ SEND training, including observing, teaching and curriculum delivery
• Collate monitoring data on SEND within the locality group of schools (including outcome data) and use this to inform decision-making regarding funding.
• Represent locality schools’ SEND issues at the locality group of schools’ head teacher meetings, including reporting on decisions and monitoring, and raising the profile of SEND issues
• Provide support to SENCos in particularly complex casework.
• Visit the schools in their locality to promote and share best practice for the use of SEN resources.

About you

The successful candidate will meet regularly with the school SENDCOs from the six - eight locality schools and develop a culture of trust and collaboration through strong relationships, so that children and young people can be discussed in a mutually supportive and confidential atmosphere, enabling transparent funding decisions to be made in the best interest of all children who have SEND in the locality schools.

You will work alongside our senior educational psychologist to agree outcomes for the pilot, how these will be assessed, and support impact reporting to the Schools Forum High Needs sub group. You will work with the Kingston AfC lead for this pilot and members of the working group. This will help to share good practice and to learn lessons from the pilot to consider its expansion more widely from September 2026.

This role is paid at 0.2 FTE which amounts to 38 days per year, which are flexible, but must include regular monthly meetings for the locality.

We would welcome the opportunity for an informal chat with candidates prior to application. To arrange this, please contact Charis Penfold, Director of Education Services at charis.penfold@achievingforchildren.org.uk

About our benefits

We are focused on creating a positive supportive environment, where you will have access to a really wide range of resources, as well as a competitive salary and all the perks to enable hybrid working. In AfC you will also have access to:

• 29 days annual leave, increasing to 33 days after 2 years and 35 days after 4 years with an additional day off in your birthday month, pro-rated for part-time employees
• Tailored induction sessions commencing on the date you start working for AfC
• Local Government salary and pension scheme (LGPS or Teachers Pension)
• Flexible working options - helping to keep a good work life balance
• A comprehensive Employee Assistance Programme
• A range of staff benefits and discounts
• An excellent learning and development offer to support your career pathway