Principal Officer, Special Educational Needs and Disabilities

at  Office for Standards in Education Childrens Services and Skills

JOB SUMMARY

We are hiring a Principal Officer, Special Educational Needs and Disabilities to join our Education team.
The Principal Officer, Special Educational Needs and Disabilities (SEND) will lead on work to develop relevant inspection frameworks, guidance, and improvement activity. The post holder will be responsible for leading, managing and developing the policy team to help ensure that staff have the skills and capabilities needed to deliver current and forthcoming priorities. Through the PO’s leadership, the team will develop, refresh and maintain Ofsted’s inspection policy across these remits. With knowledge of the sector and networks with relevant stakeholders, the PO will proactively identify and implement the changes needed to current and future inspection, in line with the HMCI’s vision for Ofsted’s work.
This is a fantastic opportunity to further your experience in Ofsted’s well-established team. The post holder will work with high-achieving professionals at all levels, surrounded by a friendly and supportive team. They will have access to amazing benefits, such as flexible working hours, the Civil Service Pension Scheme, and 32.5 days annual leave + 8 bank holidays. We offer a hybrid working model, so you may also choose to spend a proportion of time working from home.

JOB DESCRIPTION

Please refer to the job specification for further information.

QUALIFICATIONS

Degree level qualification or equivalent knowledge and experience.

TECHNICAL SKILLS

We’ll assess you against these technical skills during the selection process:

• Demonstrate understanding of key stakeholders, their roles and interest and the operational and political context of Ofsted.
• Experience of working successfully at a senior level in a complex organisation to lead and manage the development of policy and supporting materials.
• Experience of providing professional policy advice on a range of complex issues to senior colleagues and challenge to improve policy development.
• Successful application of leadership and management skills, with knowledge and skills in resource management, managing a team.

Benefits
Alongside your salary of £78,779, Office for Standards in Education, Children’s Services and Skills contributes £21,270 towards you being a member of the Civil Service Defined Benefit Pension scheme. Find out what benefits a Civil Service Pension provides.
Full details of the benefits available can be found in our Ofsted Offer brochure.
Ofsted is devoted to equality, diversity and inclusion. Within our Ofsted Strategy 2023-2027 we have stated that we will improve the representation of under-represented groups across the organisation and publish our progress on this annually. We are always looking to expand on our diverse workforce by recruiting candidates from varied backgrounds and differing experiences. We are proud to be a Disability Confident – Leader, we continually engage with our 5 staff networks for protected characteristics, and highlight the work of our Equalities, Diversity and Inclusion (EDI) Group. We ensure all candidates are treated with fair and open competition, with all appointments being made on merit and we use our Disability Confident Scheme (DCS) to provide assurance to all candidates of this.
Things you need to know

NATIONALITY REQUIREMENTS

This job is broadly open to the following groups:

• UK nationals
• nationals of the Republic of Ireland
• nationals of Commonwealth countries who have the right to work in the UK
• nationals of the EU, Switzerland, Norway, Iceland or Liechtenstein and family members of those nationalities with settled or pre-settled status under the European Union Settlement Scheme (EUSS) (opens in a new window)
• nationals of the EU, Switzerland, Norway, Iceland or Liechtenstein and family members of those nationalities who have made a valid application for settled or pre-settled status under the European Union Settlement Scheme (EUSS)
• individuals with limited leave to remain or indefinite leave to remain who were eligible to apply for EUSS on or before 31 December 2020
• Turkish nationals, and certain family members of Turkish nationals, who have accrued the right to work in the Civil Service

Further information on nationality requirements (opens in a new window)

Senior leadership
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