Team Leader

An exciting opportunity has arisen for a Team Leader to join our Special Education Service.
This growing team deliver the day-to-day management of the arrangements for statutory assessment of children and young people with SEND assuring compliance with the SEND Code of Practice.
The Team Leader is pivotal in ensuring that Leicester City continues to deliver high quality plans whilst ensuring that the statutory process is effectively managed to complete assessment within the Statutory timeframe. Leicester City currently delivers over 60% of plans within the 20-week timeframe significantly higher than many other authorities. They aspire to increase that percentage whilst ensuring that we maintain our plan quality.
Working together, they liaise with a variety of Stakeholders such as schools and other professionals as well as liaising with parents and families to deliver a high quality, child centred assessment process.
Team Leaders influence local, regional and national policy through their work within the authority but also with external stakeholders such as the Department for Education, The Change partnership programme and other regional and national initiatives.
The Special Education service offers hybrid working with staff working at home or in a local authority office, usually New Parks House to meet the needs of both the individual and the service. All staff are expected to attend some office-based meetings and training and may also be require to travel across the city to undertake school visits, attend meetings, training and conferences.
This is a full time, permanent position with typical working hours 8.30am-5.30pm Monday to Thursday and 8.30am-4.30pm on a Friday.
What you'll be doing
Acting as a confident and supportive manager you will lead the team to deliver the day-to-day management of the arrangements for statutory assessment of children and young people with SEND assuring compliance with the SEND Code of Practice. You'll be confident in supporting your team to fulfil their roles to the best of their ability.
Establishing a strong performance/ quality assurance culture including effective qualitative measures, the evaluation of service quality, and improving service delivery. The Team Leader will work in a very challenging environment, have exceptional skills in conflict management and the ability to allocate staffing resources in a flexible and creative way of working.
It's not surprising that within this role you'll be at the forefront of positive changes. Identifying improvements to management within areas of responsibility, you'll liaise closely with a range of colleagues, including but not limited to the Specialist Teaching Service, Education Psychology Service, Schools and Colleges, the Admissions team, Social Care and Health colleagues, and IT to ensure issues are addressed efficiently. In addition, you'll play a key role in contributing to the development of new processes, policies, and reporting systems within the SES Service, adhering to the legal framework. This role will also include providing management information to Senior staff to improve delivery and performance.
Whilst no two days are the same, as a Team Leader you can expect to chair a variety of decision-making meetings, conduct regular supervision meetings with staff that report to you, currently 8/9 people and provide daily support to staff, manage and monitor KPI targets relating to both individual and team performance, produce a range of management information, work to improve current practice and procedures, work with regional colleagues, schools, colleges as well as parent and carers of young people.
What you'll need

With recent and relevant experience in a specialist area involving multi professional assessment, you'll have experience of SEN within a local authority context, and knowledge of SEND legislation, guidance, and policy.
As an excellent communicator, with experience of relaying verbal and written information to a wide variety of audiences, you'll be confident in managing conflict resolution and sensitive issues to achieve positive outcomes.
You'll be able to provide the analysis and interpretation of audits, outcome and impact measures, including complaints and reporting on statutory compliance, to a variety of audiences including Senior Management Team, SEND Board, Lead Members and other managers and practitioners, tailoring reports to their specific needs.
As a confident negotiator, you'll work closely with schools, colleges, and other education providers to ensure that Leicester City children with an EHC plan receive the education they deserve, removing barriers, and supporting placements to be inclusive.
Driving licence preferable but not required as long as candidates are able to travel to schools, LCC sites and other venues as needed. No specific qualifications required, a degree in a relevant area desirable but an expectation that candidates will have good level of education and a willingness to learn.
This role is subject to an enhanced DBS check.