School Improvement Lead

Role Title and Department: School Improvement Lead, Education Department
Role Purpose: Responsible for using PEAS’ approaches to support school leaders in government schools near PEAS schools to drive quality improvements.

Contract length: 1 year
Location and Travel: Kasama, Northern Province. A significant proportion of the time (up to 50%) will be spent in PEAS schools or surrounding primary schools.

Reporting to: Senior School Network Manager

The Opportunity

PEAS has successfully built and now runs a network of four secondary schools in Zambia. PEAS is committed to sharing what works in our school networks with others, to support wider improvements across the Zambian education system. In 2021, PEAS will be piloting an exciting new programme of support for government schools near to PEAS’ secondary schools in Northern Province, Zambia. Through this pilot, we will work with Secondary school leaders to improve quality by using and adapting PEAS’ tested tools and processes to provide effective and targeted support based on primary schools’ needs.

As School Improvement Lead, you will be largely based in PEAS schools and responsible for delivering direct support to government school leaders and teachers, using PEAS’ tested tools and approaches. This will include working with Secondary school leaders to assess schools’ strengths and areas for development and coaching school leaders and staff to develop and implement School Improvement Plans. Based on schools’ needs, you will provide follow-up support and training in a range of areas, including teaching and learning and child protection. In order to develop a strong understanding of PEAS’ approaches, and to support PEAS students, you will also work within a PEAS secondary school to help the Senior Leadership Team drive improvement and ensure PEAS schools become “centres of excellence”. This is a new and exciting role as we seek to grow our impact both in our own secondary school network and beyond.

We are looking for someone who is able to quickly develop working relationships with PEAS staff and school staff in government schools and provide credible advice and coaching support to secondary school leaders. The ideal candidate will have experience in a school leadership position, and an understanding of both the primary and secondary education sectors.

The School Improvement Lead will split their time between the PEAS Northern Province Office in Kasama, a PEAS’ secondary school in Kasama or Mungwi, and the nearby secondary schools, with the majority of their time spent in the field. To be successful in this role, you must be motivated and target-driven, and able to effectively motivate others to achieve. You will be part of a hard- working, growing and highly effective team who support one another to deliver impact. Our team are united by our vision, values and desire to give the highest possible number of students the best possible education and life outcomes.

Measuring impact

As an organisation, teams, and individuals, we have key results that keep us focused to achieve our overall objectives. The impact of the School Improvement Lead role will be measured against the following key results*:

• Improve partner secondary schools ‘assessment score’ from X to Y (baseline tbc)
• Improve partner secondary school’s literacy rates from X to Y (baseline tbc).
• Directly support # affiliate secondary school leaders to design and implement SMART School Improvement Plans, drawing on evidence
• Support the delivery of # teacher training sessions in affiliate secondary schools, based on identified needs.
• Work with partner secondary schools to improve their overall compliance to MoGE child protection and monitoring tools – to schools achieving X or higher (baseline tbc)
• Ensure wider PEAS team has regular, high-quality information on activities and progress in partner secondary schools, including up to date and accurate data.
• Support PEAS school Instructional Leadership Team to develop and deliver teacher training activities.

Roles and responsibilities

• Support partner secondary schools to improve learning quality using PEAS’ tools and approaches.
• Quickly develop strong working relationships with non-PEAS primary school leaders in Government schools
• Work with school leaders to assess schools’ strengths and areas for improvement and provide feedback in a constructive manner.
• Support school leaders to develop School Improvement Plans (SIPs) with clear and achievable targets.
• Provide training and coaching to support school leaders to implement SIPs and drive improvement within the school, drawing on PEAS tested tools and approaches.
• Regularly collect data from secondary schools and share with the PEAS Monitoring & Evaluation team to monitor progress.
• Use data to provide targeted support to schools that helps them improve.
• Provide regular progress updates to the School Improvement Coordinator and contribute to reports when needed.

Support PEAS school to become “centres of excellence”

• Work within a PEAS school’s Senior Leadership Team (SLT) to help drive improvement.
• Contribute to SLT plans for teacher training, including taking part in delivering teacher training, conducting observations and supporting peer observations and feedback.
• Provide constructive feedback to teachers to help them increase student learning.

Embody PEAS values

• Act with the highest level of professional conduct, while working both in PEAS schools and with government schools
• Represent PEAS in government schools, promoting PEAS’ values.
• Prioritising students’ welfare, adhering to PEAS Child Protection and Adult Safeguarding Policies in all areas of work.

Who we are looking for

The ideal candidate

Has:

• Minimum of a degree from a recognised university (preferably Social Sciences, Education or Gender)
• Experience working in a school leadership position at a secondary or primary schools
• Experience and knowledge of how to support others to improve education outcomes
• Experience in delivering training and capacity building
• Experience working with complex stakeholder groups in rural low-income communities in Zambia

Can:

• Consistently champion PEAS’ values,
• Lead training sessions, tailoring the content for a range of different audiences (e.g., for school staff, staff who support schools, students)
• Communicate clearly and concisely in both English and Bemba.
• Monitor progress and report against key data points
• Confidently use Microsoft Office and workplace technology (e.g., email) to remain in contact with the wider team.
• Be comfortable working and planning to budgets.

Should be:

• Passionate about improving the life chances of all children through educational opportunity.
• Able to quickly build working relationships and coach school leaders and teachers using strong interpersonal skills.
• Well-organised; able to perform multiple responsibilities to strict deadlines, following up with others in PEAS and in other schools for input and progress updates where necessary.
• Target-driven; comfortable with planning to targets and motivated to achieve them.
• Persistent; willing to go the distance to get things done well.
• Collaborative not competitive; working with peers in and across schools and different teams across the organisation and externally to achieve shared objectives

Desirable criteria

• Experience working for/with international NGOs.
• In-depth knowledge of rural context in Zambia and community dynamics