Business Unit:
Ashford College
Location:
Ashford, Kent
Salary Details:
£84,105 (FTE) per annum
Hours Per Week:
37
Weeks Per Year:
52
Annual Leave:
38 days (FTE) per annum
Proposed Interview Date:
23/05/2025
Advertising End Date:
11/05/2025

About The Role

We are seeking an outstanding and inspirational leader for the post of Principal at EKC Ashford College.

As a Principal you would be responsible for fostering and maintaining a clear vision for the future of the college. It would be your duty to widen opportunities for education within the community, driving forward both the commercial and educational success of the college.

Your role will also include:
  • establishing clear lines of responsibility for the curriculum, the successful financial management, and development and improvement of the student experience.
  • Leading on the strategy, planning, management and delivery of courses and qualifications, learning resources, libraries, and research
  • Line management responsibility, including implementation of all staffing policies and procedures
  • Ensuring compliance with relevant legislation and procedures
  • Representing the college at external and internal events
  • Fostering and maintaining effective relationships with local, regional and national agencies
  • Facilitating cultural and business change by developing agreed objectives and operational plans to meet the college's strategic plan
You will lead on all aspects of student performance to maximise the full potential and ambitions of every student and play a key role in the development and innovation of outstanding teaching, learning and assessment. The post holder will be the Colleges lead for safeguarding and staff wellbeing.

Interview / Assessments to be held on Friday 23rd May 2025 at EKC Ashford College.
 

About You

The successful candidate will have a drive and passion to lead EKC Ashford College and accelerate improvement. You will have a track record of success and bring to the College a level of focus, precision and rigour that will have a substantial and sustained impact on Ashford College into the future. Improvement will be based on an unswerving focus on teaching and learning and a strong commitment to collaboration within and beyond East Kent Colleges Group.

You will need to show extensive knowledge and experience of the FE sector and will already have a successful track record in a senior role within an education provider. You will be able to demonstrate your ability in building and developing a high-performing team as well as experience managing a workforce of a significant size.

You will also need to have demonstrable experience of delivering both academic and institutional success and in your time in senior roles you will have built up a proven track record of setting, responding to, and successfully delivering challenging performance targets. You would also have gained experience working with and being accountable to a governing body, as well as experience of dealing with professional bodies, as well as extensive experience of the Ofsted and QAA inspection processes.
 
No need to spend time updating your CV, just click apply and complete our application form. You can save your progress as you go, and we’ll review all applications and get back to all candidates after the closing date. 

If you are interested in an informal chat about the role, or have any queries, please email us on [email protected]

About Us

Outstanding Ofsted Provider

East Kent Colleges Group is an Ofsted Outstanding rated provider. It is proud to be the first General Further Education college organisation in the country to have received the Outstanding grade against each of the strands under the new Ofsted inspection framework. An inclusive provider, our colleagues place our students and the communities we serve at the heart of everything they do across EKC Group and this is illustrated in our ‘Strong’ skills grading by Ofsted.

Commitment to Safeguarding

We are committed to safeguarding and promoting the welfare of children and vulnerable adults and we ensure that all staff are aware of their responsibilities for upholding these principles.

As a designated establishment, we are exempt from the Rehabilitation of Offenders Act 1974 and therefore have an obligation to carry out checks to ensure that staff are suitable to work with children and vulnerable adults. These checks include conviction/caution self-declaration, Enhanced DBS check and obtaining sufficient referencing.

It is a criminal offence to apply for a post which involves engaging in regulated activity relevant to children if you are barred from doing so.

If you are successful in being shortlisted to interview, your suitability to work with children and vulnerable adults will be explored as part of the interview process.

Commitment to Equality, Diversity and Inclusion

East Kent Colleges Group is an equal opportunities employer and welcomes applications from all members of our communities. We are particularly keen to increase the diversity of our staff body and encourage applications from candidates where there is underrepresentation in our workforce.

We are proud to hold the Positive About Disability Award and are a Disability Confident Employer. This confirms our commitment to interviewing all applicants who declare that they have a disability and who meet the essential criteria outlined in the person specification. With any successful candidate, we will explore any reasonable adjustments to a role due to a health needs or disability.

Similarly, we have a commitment to Care Leavers (Care Covenant Pledge) and to current or previous Armed Forces personnel (Armed Forces Covenant Pledge) with a commitment to interview applicants who meet the positions essential criteria and who have declared this on their application. 

We welcome applications from anyone wishing to work flexibly and those considering a return to work from a career break.

We do not engage with agencies for permanent staff and have an in-house recruitment team.

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