Senior Education Advisor
| Posting date: | 11 July 2025 |
|---|---|
| Hours: | Full time |
| Closing date: | 10 August 2025 |
| Location: | Leicester, LE3 8RA |
| Company: | Leicestershire County Council |
| Job type: | Permanent |
| Job reference: | 5680 |
Summary
Children and Families Department
Organisation: Leicestershire County Council
Work Location: County Hall, Glenfield , LE3 8RA
Worker Category: Fixed Location Worker
Salary: £42,498 - £46,344 per annum (pro-rata for part-time)
Working Hours: 37 Hours per week
Contract Type: Fixed term/ Secondment for (12 months ) ( You must seek managers approval prior to applying)
Closing Date: 22nd July 2025
Interview Date(s): TBC
About the Role
This is a 1-year fixed-term/ Secondment contract – full-time ( You must seek managers approval prior to applying)
The Leicestershire Virtual School supports our looked-after children and care leavers to access high-quality education and achieve their potential. We are firmly focused on raising aspirations and narrowing attainment and progress gaps to improve outcomes and life chances. https://resources.leicestershire.gov.uk/leicestershire-virtual-school
We wish to appoint a Senior Education Advisor (SEA) to have responsibility for promoting the education of looked after young people by working collaboratively with a range of partners and agencies, including social workers, education settings and foster carers. You will coordinate the statutory Personal Education Plan process across primary and secondary age phases, thereby ensuring good quality planning leading to positive educational outcomes.
This role will involve advising schools/colleges, settings, and key professionals on strategies that address emerging educational and behavioural issues and lead to improved outcomes for Leicestershire children in care, care leavers, and previously looked after children.
Understanding the barriers faced by children in care and care leavers is key to the successful delivery of duties. The Leicestershire Virtual School is at the forefront of promoting understanding of attachment theory and trauma-informed practice, which will enable you to support, challenge and advocate on behalf of a register of children and young people in care. In addition, you will be supported to acquire in-depth knowledge and understanding of DfE statutory guidance as it relates to the education of looked-after children and previously looked-after children.
You will be confident at communicating effectively and accurately both in writing and orally, chairing and attending meetings delivered online or face-to-face. You will be efficient and organised yet keen to bring innovation and creativity to deliver service improvements. You must be able to work on your own initiative but with the support of our caring, supportive, and committed team.
An enhanced DBS check is required for this post.
For information on our approach to the recruitment of ex-offenders, please see our policy statement.
About You
To apply for this post, you must respond to and provide evidence of the following essential criteria within your personal statement. This should be no more than 1,000 words
- A relevant Level 6 qualification, e.g. qualified teacher status, or Substantial experience of working in a school/college / alternative education / local authority education service/ Early Years setting
- Excellent knowledge of attachment and trauma theory and/or practice and behaviour management strategies across age ranges
- Excellent understanding of the barriers children in care may experience in accessing educational opportunities, across both primary and secondary age phases.
- Knowledge of legislation and guidance relating to Primary and secondary education, specifically to children in care
- Able to influence and persuade in order to negotiate successful outcomes.
- Excellent communication skills, both written and oral, across the full range of audiences
- Experience in delivering high-quality training to peers and professionals
You must also have an understanding of, and commitment to, equality, diversity and inclusion.
In addition, we also expect you to share our commitment to our values and will ask you to provide evidence when you have demonstrated them as part of the selection process.
Reasonable adjustments will be considered for applicants with a disability.
Interested in Flexible Working?
We are keen to support employees in balancing their working lives with other commitments. Therefore, wherever possible, we will consider working arrangements that suit an individual's personal circumstances while still meeting the needs of the Council. If you would like to discuss the possible flexible working options that might be applicable to this role, please contact the person named below. This may include requests for term-time working, part-time hours, compressed hours, flexible start and finish times, home/remote working, etc.
Every role within the Council has a defined working style that determines where it can work. The worker category applicable to this post is detailed in the above advert. You can find out more about our worker categories on the Our Working Styles page on our career site.
For more information or an informal discussion, please contact:
Donna Chapman - Virtual School Head and Service Manager
Telephone: 01163052174
Email: Donna.Chapman@leics.gov.uk
How to Apply
Leicestershire County Council is an inclusive organisation which is on a journey to embed and celebrate equality, diversity and inclusion at every level. We warmly welcome and encourage applications from people of all backgrounds, as having a diverse workforce with different perspectives and ideas is fundamental to our values and enriches the services we offer our communities. We particularly welcome applicants from Ethnically Diverse and LGBTQ+ communities and people with disabilities to create a balanced workforce and one that reflects the communities we serve. Applicants with a disability who meet the criteria listed in the 'About You' section above will be offered an interview under the Disability Confident Employer Scheme.
To apply for this job, please click on the apply button. You will need to upload a supporting statement explaining how you meet the criteria listed in the 'About You' section above. For more information, see the How to Apply section on our career site.
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.
If you have any technical issues when applying for this post or you want to request an application pack in an alternative format, please contact our Employee Service Centre by telephoning 0300 3030222 (select option 2) or raising a ticket via our online portal: https://emss.org.uk/support.
By applying for this post, you agree to our Terms and Conditions.
Proud member of the Disability Confident employer scheme