Our aim is for everyone in the National Church Institutions (NCIs) to feel that they belong, and are valued for who they are and what they contribute. Together, our people contribute in different ways towards our common purpose, whichever NCI they work in and whatever their background.

The Church of England is the largest single provider of education in England with one million students attending 4,700 Church of England schools. The Church of England Education Office brings together the educational work of Archbishops’ Council (including children & young people, schools, further and higher education) with the National Society and the Church of England Foundation for Educational Leadership and is responsible for education, advancing the breadth of work across 12,600 parishes, diocesan boards of education, schools, colleges and 11 Anglican foundation universities, to equip a new generation of young people to shape society and contribute meaningfully to today’s increasingly complex and globalised world.

This is a key opportunity to provide executive support to the Chief Education Officer and Executive Director of Education in their strategic leadership of the Church of England Education Office team, and their engagement with the wider education sector at a senior level.

Your role will be interesting and varied, including opportunities to support strategic meetings, assist with major stakeholder events, manage diaries and logistical planning and provide a range of essential support to a busy and complex team.

We would like to hear from you if you are keen to join our Education Office team, have strong organisational and communication skills, a proactive and professional approach together with the skills and abilities below.

We are taking a flexible approach to work, with many colleagues opting for a hybrid approach to their working week, with a mixture of home and office-based working. Further details will be discussed at interview.

The Church of England is for everyone and we want to reflect the diversity of the community the Church serves across the whole country. Therefore, while of course we welcome all applications from interested and suitably experienced people, we would particularly welcome applicants from UK Minority Ethnic Backgrounds.

For an informal conversation, please contact kalyn.mallard@churchofengland.org

Interviews will be held on the 29 June 2022.

In return we offer a unique environment with opportunities for continuous learning, generous annual leave for work life balance, season ticket loans and a range of benefits including discounted entry to attractions and what we feel is a market leading package when it comes to our pension scheme.

The Role

• To ensure efficient and organised diary management and logistical planning (including travel, venue bookings and hospitality) for the Chief Education Officer and Executive Director of Education.
• To liaise with external bodies at a senior level with a high level of professionalism (including senior clergy, Department for Education and range of other senior leaders across the education sector).
• To prepare papers and briefings for key strategic meetings.
• To work with the Events Manager to ensure operational coherence at major stakeholder events (for example National and Regional conferences, resource launches).
• To support Senior Team with communications including email, social media and internal team communications.
• To maintain staff records across the team, including the Church of England’s webpage and contact details.
• To organise Whole Team Development Days including some residential components.
• To manage expense claims for Senior Team.
• To work closely with the Governance Support Office in ensuring timely and professional preparation for Governance events.

The Requirements

Knowledge, Skills and Experience

Essential

• Excellent attention to detail.
• Strong interpersonal and communication skills, both oral and in writing.
• Experience of event planning for key stakeholders.
• Excellent IT skills, with particular reference to Excel, Teams and website updating.
• Strong organisational skills.
• Good financial skills.
• Good time management and the ability to be proactive in planning and executing tasks.
• Ability to work effectively under pressure and to maintain appropriate levels of confidentiality.
• Experience of working in multi- disciplinary teams in a complex environment
• Dedication to customer service.
• Ability to be rational, objective and unbiased when making decisions and taking action.

Desirable

• Experience of executive assistant work with a senior leader.
• Understanding of the education sector.

We in the National Church Institutions support the mission and ministries of the Church all over England. We work with parishes, dioceses (regional offices), schools, other ministries and our partners at a national and international level.

Excellence, Respect, Integrity

We follow these three values in everything we do, whether we are of Christian faith, another faith or no faith. To learn more about working for National Church Institutions and our benefits, please click here

As a Disability Confident Leader, we actively look to attract, recruit and retain those of you who are disabled.

As a member of the Armed Forces Covenant, we welcome applications from those of you who have served in our Armed Forces and their families.

We are committed to being an equal opportunities employer and to ensuring that everyone, job applicants, customers and other people with whom we deal, are treated fairly and not subject to discrimination. We will do whatever is necessary to provide genuine equality of opportunity. We continuously review our policies and processes to support our aim to create a workforce as diverse as the nation the Church of England serves.