Head of Innovation Award – Maternity Cover

Head of Innovation Award – Maternity Cover

Job Location: Hybrid, with a minimum of one day per week working from our London office and/or with Award Winners (e.g. at their offices or events). After passing probation, up to six weeks ‘super remote’ working per year, where you can work anywhere in the world as long as you’re online for four hours of the UK work day.  

Holiday: 27 days per year, plus eight bank holidays (that you can take at any time!). The FEA also shuts between 25 - 31 December, and that won’t count towards your 27 days of Annual Leave.  

Length of contract: The role is divided into two phases. We are seeking candidates that want to lead the entirety of the role (from March 2024 – April 2025) or only one phase (see dates below). You can find out more and how to apply in the attached job description.  

Full-time (37.5 per week). We are open to job share applicants and proposals for 0.6/0.8 FTE.  

About the Fair Education Alliance

The Fair Education Alliance (FEA) unites nearly 300 member organisations under a shared vision that no child’s educational success is limited by their socio-economic background. Our members (charities and social enterprises, think tanks, businesses and foundations, youth organisations, unions, universities and schools) are working collectively to create an inclusive system.   

Why We Need You!

Innovation is crucial to achieving a fair education. This is why we run our Innovation Award to nurture big ideas from the public and FEA Members to tackle entrenched issues in education. We provide a year long programme of support and six months’ salary to help them start-up and scale. To date, we’ve supported over 50 organisations including The Difference, Learning with Parents, ImpactEd, Get Further, Aspiring Heads and InsideUni.  

We open applications for our next cohort in February 2024, select winners over the summer and launch support in September. Our current postholder is going on maternity leave - so we need a Head of Innovation Award from March 2024 – April 2025. In this role you’ll lead the selection and support of our 2024 Innovation Award cohort, working with high-profile judges, visionary innovators and sector experts. 

What We’re Asking of You

As the lead for the 2024 Innovation Award, you will:  

1. Recruit, select and announce an exciting, diverse new cohort (March to September 2024) 
2. Deliver the highest quality support to the Award Winners (July 2024 – April 2025) 

You’ll be part of the Scaling Impact team, working alongside our Director of Scaling Impact and our Events and Communications Manager. This includes:  

Selecting a cohort of diverse, high-potential innovations 

You’ll generate a diverse pipeline of high potential ideas through events, outreach and partnerships. You’ll manage the project, keep all stakeholders updated and provide support for individuals applying to ensure we get a high quality and quantity of applicants. You’ll lead the selection process, coordinating a series of panels and providing developmental feedback to applicants.  

Mentoring, coaching and facilitation to start an initiative 

You’ll lead the support for Award Winners to start-up and scale. We already have a decade of experience in this, but we want you to bring your own suggestions to enhance the Innovation Incubator. Through the Incubator, you’ll bring in experts to lead the cohort training, conduct bi-weekly coaching and mentoring meetings with Award Winners and nurture peer-learning across the cohort. You’ll ensure that Award Winners meet key milestones, such as developing a Theory of Change, proving their impact through a pilot and setting up a sustainable business model.  

Brokering external support  

You’ll be an excellent connector of people. Starting with the recruitment process you’ll hold the relationships with external experts from across the innovation, education, and policy sectors who’ll support the decision-making process. Then, on the programme, you’ll build and manage excellent relationships with the network of FEA member and external advisors and partners, across all levels of seniority, and connect them to support Innovation Award Winners in an impactful and meaningful way. This will include managing skills-based employee volunteering opportunities to support Innovation Award Winners’ business objectives.   

Bringing a razor sharp focus on impact  

You’ll monitor and evaluate the effectiveness of the recruitment process and the impact of the incubator. You’ll tell a powerful story of Award Winner progress, sharing case studies and data about the cohort’s progress through our quarterly reporting, communications to members and our digital comms channels.  

Sharing your passion for tackling inequality in education  

It’s not vital that you have knowledge of the education, political and policy landscape. But, you'll need to care about making change for children and young people and be motivated to make a difference. 

We're Open to Different Working Arrangements:

Your skills and experience might suit one phase of the work over the other, or you might be a great fit to lead both phases. You can therefore apply to:  

• Lead both phases: Recruitment/selection and support (March 2024 to April 2025) 
• Consider yourself better suited for one phase, either as a fixed term employee or a consultant for: 
• Phase 1: Recruitment and selection (March 2024 to September 2024) or 
• Phase 2: Support (July 2024 to April 2025). 

In all scenarios, we are open to proposals for job shares and part-time arrangements of 0.6/0.8 FTE. 

See attached Job Description for all essential and desirable skills and how to apply.   

Application Instructions

Please see the attached JD for full information on how to apply. We will only accept candidates who send the following: 

1. Your CV 
2. A cover note which includes: 
3. Which phase(s) of the role you are applying for.    
4. Why you want to be part of the Fair Education Alliance Secretariat team.  
5. Examples of how you meet the skills and experience set out in this Job Description. 
6. We kindly ask you to complete our Equal Opportunities Form (see job description for link) to make sure we can continue to be as fair and inclusive as possible. All responses are optional and anonymous. 

If you have any questions, please contact us at [email removed - click apply for more details].