Early Years and KS1 Phase Leader

ABOUT MENTOR

Mentor Education is an independent tuition agency providing consistently high-quality tuition, face to face and online, to students of all ages and abilities. We are one of the leading tuition agencies in Britain; recognised by the Good Schools’ Guide; the top agency in the UK according to School Run magazine; the number one agency in London according to the Parent Choice website; “the UK’s most successful 11-plus tuition agency” – Evening Standard; “an exemplary track record at the best schools in London” – The Independent. We have won Education Investor's "Tuition Provider of the Year" award.

We have a 40-year long pedigree of success and have helped 80,000 students achieve their goals. Our core business is in school entrance, GCSE, and A-level exam support. We have a suite of services to help including online, school, and home tuition, courses, weekend schools, academic assessments, interview training, and more. 

We also work with some of the most disadvantaged children. We supported the children affected by Grenfell. We gave free tutoring during the pandemic to local school children to assist with their literacy. We founded the Afghan School for Girls which offers free tuition to over a thousand girls in Afghanistan under the noses of the Taliban.

At the core of our team are our hundreds of Tutors. Mentor Education tutors are enthusiastic, innovative, experienced teachers or retired teachers who can tailor tutoring for each student and deliver excellent, stimulating, and fun lessons across all curriculum areas.

THE ROLE

We are a leading supplementary education agency and are looking to hire a Head of EYFS and KS1. This role involves both directly teaching children and also developing our programmes and pedagogy in this space. This role would be based out of our Clapham office with Saturday morning work as standard in term time. We are open to part time candidates. This role would report into our Associate Director for Education (Primary) and will be responsible, educationally, for the following three areas of our business:

4 Plus Entrance

We help around 100 children a year of pre reception age pass their 4 plus assessments. Our track record is superb with around 70-80% of children passing their 4 plus vs a normal 10-20% of children passing without us. Children are typically targeting Highgate, Habs, South Hampstead, Channing, North London Collegiate, Alleyn’s, JAGS or Dulwich College. You would be involved directly in teaching these children and coaching them and their parents.

We have a very well-developed programme based on increasing readiness for school, working on our behavioural based 4 Plus Pillars and accelerating more academic attainment. This programme needs further developing with a wider range of lesson plans written which are based on the 4+ Pillars and how to progress children in certain areas as well as a progression of objectives for assessment purposes.

We employ a team of eight very high calibre current teachers who see the children on Saturday mornings on midweek out of either Hampstead or Dulwich. These are typically teachers at the schools themselves or who are from excellent prep schools. We also have a full time teacher in house who works solely on our 4 plus programme and our other early years provision This role would manage that team ensuing they have a clear overview of the teachers and the cohort of children and parents.

This role would also lead on our burgeoning partnerships in this space. We have agreed a partnership with a training provider to develop CPD programme to help the schools themselves with their 4 Plus Assessments. We have agreed a partnership with a leading nursery group to expand our reach of our support to more parents. We also work with CEM using their early years assessment tools as an integrated part of our assessment process and we are keen to expand our testing provision.

Early Years School Readiness

Many of our 4 plus students stay on with us for further support before they start school. These children are supported with more academic style preparation as we look to increase their Literacy and Maths skills. We use the Read Write Inc programme for literacy and an adapted version of White Rose Maths for Mathematics. This role would both teach some of these children as well as grow our pedagogy in this area.

7 Plus Entrance

We have a substantial and growing business in the world of 7 plus exam support. Children are typically targeting City of London, KCS Wimbledon, Westminster, Highgate, Habs, Channing, North London Collegiate, Alleyn’s, JAGS, Dulwich College and various GDST schools. 

There is a full suite of services which supports this including academic assessments, mock exam, interview preparation and holiday courses. You would become an expert on all things 7 plus and become a subject expert on the different examinations and further develop our services to match the changing market needs. You would offer educational advice to parents. When required you would yourself be able to do lessons and teaching as needed.

We have around 10 teachers who teach this on Saturday and Sunday mornings in Hampstead and in Dulwich. We have a programme to convert excellent state school teachers into 7 plus exam specialists. You would train up and manage this cohort of weekend teachers

About Mentor Education

We are a leading provider of supplementary education services. We have three parts to our organisation:

• Mentor Education which supports children with school entrance and public exams.
• Varsity Scholars which supports schools, families and charities with Oxbridge admissions.
• The Afghan College for Girls which provides free tuition to hundreds of girls in Afghanistan.

Our head office is based in Clapham South but we also run education services for families out of Hampstead, Dulwich and we are soon to be opening services in Wimbledon.

We have around 1000 tutors whom we work with, most of whom are qualified teachers, as well as employing our own central Education team.

Last year we won Tuition Agency of the Year and are shortlisted again for it. We also published the best selling book “How to Pass the 11 Plus” and our CEO is Vice President of the industry body, The Tutors’ Association.

 About you

• We are looking above all for someone who loves little children, is child centred and child led.
• You must have qualified teacher status.
• You should have some experience of school entrance – this could be achieved through preparing children for school entrance or running competitive school entrance processes at your own school. 
• You must be interested in developing pedagogical programmes.
• You should be able to work across EYFS and KS1.
• You should be comfortable with change
• You should have excellent communication skills and feel confident speaking to a range of teachers and parents  
• You should be able to work well within a team and collaborate in a fast paced team.
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Salary and remuneration

We offer a base salary of £40,000 - £45,000. We also have a range of company, personal and business unit bonuses which have a target of £5000 a year but which can be as high as £8000 a year.

If you are already in a school leadership role and already on a significantly higher salary than this but are interested in joining our team do please consider contacting us to discuss a move as we could restructure the roles and responsibilities and consider regrading this role.