Senior Programme Manager

at  Chefs in Schools

Job description

WHO WE ARE

The School Food Review is a coalition of organisations spanning charities, educational organisations, caterers, unions and academics, committed to working together to improve children’s health by reforming the school food system. The group’s work is coordinated by founder members School Food Matters, Food Foundation, Bite Back 2030 and Chefs in Schools, and is supported by Impact on Urban Health.
The School Food Review has identified three areas of action required to deliver meaningful change – equitable access, fairer funding and quality assurance. Work across these three areas is delivered through focused working groups, drawing on members of the coalition. This includes public campaigning, advocacy and policy development.
The post will be hosted by Chefs in Schools; we are a young, ambitious charity that’s rapidly growing. Our mission is to improve kids’ health, through improving school food & food education. Working in areas of high deprivation, we support and train school kitchen teams to serve the best, freshest and tastiest food possible, alongside meaningful food education. We share our learning and resources freely, aiming to inspire and enable others to follow our lead.
We’re backed by some of the biggest names in food and have ambitious targets to ensure every child has access to incredible school food and food education, setting them up for life with the skills and knowledge to feed themselves well.

SKILLS & EXPERIENCE:

• You have a background or significant experience in working in coalition or partnership with multiple organisations
• You have interest and belief in our mission, to improve child health through improving food and food education in schools
• You have a background or significant experience in project or programme management at significant scale
• You are organised, methodical, strong on detail, and able to map out deadlines and plan ahead
• You are an excellent writer and communicator with strong presentation and facilitation skills
• You are skilled in building rapport with people and strike a balance between being supportive and challenging
  As we work with children & young people, an offer of employment will be subject to satisfactory references and enhanced DBS clearance, in line with our safeguarding policy

ABOUT YOU AND THE ROLE

The purpose of this role is to coordinate the work of our coalition, the School Food Review, to ensure that we are maximising the potential of the skills and expertise we can draw on from members, and driving meaningful impact. You will work closely with the School Food Review’s Operational Group, made up of key personnel from the founding organisations, to ensure that the coalition delivers on its mission. Whilst employed by Chefs in Schools, your role will be focused within the coalition.
Day to day, you will project manage operational delivery across the School Food Review coalition, ensuring efficient and effective delivery against the agreed work plan, which you will be monitoring and developing in consultation with your colleagues in the operational group. You will ensure that the governance committee and broader coalition group are kept informed of progress, promptly flagging risks and identifying suitable mitigations.
You will have an understanding of the context that we operate in, education and food sectors, and a high-level understanding of the type of work that is being delivered (eg policy, campaigning and advocacy). You will be a subject matter expert in project management. Your expertise in this area will be combined with strong people skills, and the ability to manage effective partnerships with external organisations. Experience of working with a coalition, or in partnership with multiple organisations, is crucial.
The responsibilities, skills and experience listed below are intended to give you an idea of what we need for this role. If you don’t meet every single requirement, but feel as though you would be able to work with us to deliver the majority of them, we would urge you to apply anyway. We are dedicated to building a diverse and inclusive workplace, and for us the most important ‘experience’ is passion for our mission. You may be just the right candidate for this, or other roles.

KEY RESPONSIBILITIES:

• Development of project work plans, seeking approval from the Governance Committee and buy-in from the wider coalition
• Managing delivery of the project work plan to timeline, working in partnership with the working groups, supporting them to remain effective
• Manage the development of new programmes and workstreams, ensuring that these align with the agreed framework from the Governance Committee
• Ensure that project planning and delivery is in line with our commitment to diversity, equity and inclusion
• Ensuring learning and evaluation is embedded from design stage onwards
• Contribute to the development of strategy for the coalition
• Prepare budget and forecasts, for sign off by the Governance Committee
• Ensure our funders are kept up to date with the latest progress
• Keeping in touch with external partners and environment, to understand issues affecting the wider sector