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Person Specification – Head of Schools

Personal Attributes

  • Strong leadership and management skills.
  • Open and collaborative. Able to involve and get the best out of internal expertise from across specialist teams to deliver impact.
  • Deep knowledge of the school’s sector and commitment to supporting schools develop positive reading habits for children and young people, with a focus on those who need support the most.
  • Outward facing and able to build strategic partnerships to further the reach and impact of BookTrust’s school offers.
  • Strategic thinking and planning, interpreting data and using evidence to make recommendations, decisions and action plans.
  • Comfortable navigating multiple inputs and viewpoints to coordinate and plan.
  • Commercial acumen and business development skills. Comfortable with leading income generation and able to balance integrity with commercial planning.
  • Strong communication skills. Able to communicate clearly, concisely and effectively to internal and external stakeholders.

Experience

Essential (assessed through shortlisting and interview)

  • Leadership and management experience, with a track record of working with senior stakeholders and delivering results through matrix-style working.
  • Demonstrable experience of strong collaborative working behaviours, with the ability to work positively with specialist teams to acheive best results.
  • Experience in leading and working across multiple strands of activity within a programme of work, spotting interdependencies, opportunities and risks.
  • Deep knowledge of the school sector. Commited to supporting schools to develop positive reading habits for children and young people, with a focus on those who need support the most.
  • Key experience in developing / executing:
    • Long-term planning for change and delivery;
    • Effective programmes to deliver impact-led outcomes and sustainable income streams.
  • Demonstrable commercial and business development skills, with experience of leading income generation.
  • Strong communication skills. Able to communicate clearly, concisely and effectively to internal and external stakeholders.

Desirable

  • Experience of working as part of a geographically-dispersed team.
  • Experience of building external partnerships to sucessfully target or scale activity.

Skills and Attributes

Essential (assessed through shortlisting and interview)

  • Confident influencer, with excellent interpersonal and communicative style.
  • Effective collaborator with internal and external stakeholders.
  • Excellent writing skills and ability to distil complex information into a strong, cohesive story.
  • Strategic thinking and planning, interpreting data and using evidence to make recommendations, decisions and action plans.
  • Comfortable navigating multiple inputs and viewpoints to coordinate and plan.
  • Commitment to, and role modelling working in, an inclusive way and committed to BookTrust’s valuing and development of diversity.
  • Comfortable in working in medium sized organisation (c.100 people) which works at national level and at scale.