Education Support Officer

The education development team is dedicated to enhancing leadership and teaching quality in Neath Port Talbot (NPT) schools, with the long-term aim of ensuring that all learners make meaningful progress towards the four purposes of education. This is an innovative position, requiring forward-thinking strategies and creative solutions to address the evolving challenges within the region. As Neath Port Talbot faces increasing levels of poverty-conditions strongly correlated with declining attainment, rising exclusions, and poor attendance, as highlighted in the Welsh Index of Multiple Deprivation-the need to build resilience throughout all school communities has never been more urgent.

Central to this vision is thoughtfully and collaboratively cultivating an equity mindset across all school communities, thereby reducing the impact of poverty on learners' progression and attainment. This commitment aligns directly with the national mission for education., The team seeks an experienced school leader to champion educational equity on a permanent basis. The lead's role is to thoughtfully and collaboratively drive efforts to transform approaches to equity throughout NPT, fostering the development of an equity mindset among all stakeholders.

A key priority is building collaborative, cross-directorate strategies to tackle poverty, emphasising the importance of working together with a range of partners to ensure services are aligned and responsive to local needs. The lead will play a pivotal role in supporting poverty proofing across all aspects of school life, ensuring that barriers to learning and attainment are identified and addressed systematically.

Community-Focused and Evidence-Informed Practice The vision recognises that addressing poverty is a shared responsibility across the community. Schools are encouraged to work thoughtfully and collaboratively with local businesses, third sector organisations, and public services, coordinated by the equity leader. The Community Focused Schools (CfS) initiative is a central element of this anti-poverty strategy, aiming to mitigate the effects of poverty on education by aligning services around the needs of pupils and families.

The leader will ensure thoughtful investment in CfS and promote effective family and community engagement, while supporting schools to embed poverty proofing in their daily practice. Alignment with Curriculum for Wales Evidence-informed practice is to be embedded in alignment with the Curriculum for Wales, recognising that the curriculum encompasses all aspects of a learner's experience. Teachers are required to have a deep understanding of their pupils and act on their starting points, with a clear priority to teach with an equity mindset, thoughtfully and collaboratively supporting every learner.

Collaborative Partnerships and Engagement This role involves working closely and collaboratively with the Community Focused Schools manager and liaising with the Family Engagement Officers network. The equity leader will represent NPT at national meetings and events, supporting all schools to become more community focused, promoting opportunities for family and community engagement, and strengthening collaborative partnership working through multi-agency networks. Supporting poverty proofing is central to this work, ensuring that every decision and initiative helps to remove barriers related to disadvantage.

Planning for Transition to Improve Attainment in Secondary Schools Careful planning for transitions in learning, particularly as students move between educational phases, is highlighted as a crucial strategy for raising attainment in secondary schools. The vision emphasises that by strategically allocating resources-especially the Pupil Development Grant (PDG)-and thoughtfully managing transition points, schools can provide targeted support to learners at risk of underachievement.

With the leadership and guidance of the equity lead, this focused approach to transition will lay the groundwork for closing attainment gaps and ensuring that poverty proofing underpins every stage of the learner journey. The main duties of the post;

• Developing an Anti-poverty strategy for NPT schools (long-term and system wide)
• System wide understanding of how poverty impacts on people's lives (What schools/teachers can do about it)
• Aligning services including LA, WG, Health, Business, third-sector
• Forging partnership working (National, local, cross-directorate)
• Achieving a paradigm shift in the culture (PL in education sector)
• Planning, monitoring, evaluating and reporting to external partners
• Collaborative working with strategic leads across the local authority to align service provision around the needs of children and their families.
• Using qualitative evidence to influence the strategic direction of policy and practice at a local authority and Welsh Government level.
• Leading schools to developing a deeper understanding of the needs of their communities.
• Designing,…