AQA
Senior Manager of Assessment
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At AQA, we’re committed to advancing education and we’re committed to our people. As the largest provider of academic qualifications in the UK, we mark over 10 million exam papers each year and it’s our people who make this happen.
Senior Manager of Assessment
Permanent
Manchester: £62,900 - £69,000
or
Guildford: £65,500 - £72,000
Hybrid Working (min 2 days in office per week)
Help shape assessments that impact hundreds of thousands of learners every year.
This is an opportunity to lead a talented team at the heart of AQA's assessment delivery. You'll play a key role in ensuring high-quality assessments are developed, quality assured and delivered accurately, helping learners take the next step in their education. Your leadership will directly influence the quality, fairness and reliability of qualifications used by schools and colleges across the UK and internationally.
As a Senior Manager of Assessment, you'll lead a team of Assessment Managers, Assessment Support Managers and Assessment Coordinators, providing direction, coaching and oversight across the assessment cycle. You'll work with colleagues across Assessment and the wider business to ensure assessments are valid, reliable and delivered to the highest standards while driving continuous improvement and championing best practice.
In this role, you'll be responsible for:
- Leading and developing a team, creating an inclusive culture where people can perform at their best and continue to grow.
- Ensuring assessment materials are planned, managed and delivered to agreed quality, regulatory and customer standards.
- Managing risks, issues and delivery plans across your subject portfolio, taking ownership of escalations when required.
- Working with senior stakeholders across AQA to influence decisions, improve processes and deliver successful outcomes.
- Providing leadership across Assessment Management and contributing to strategic projects and business initiatives.
- Championing assessment quality, continuous improvement and good assessment practice across the organisation.
- Using data, insight and performance measures to inform decision-making and improve delivery.
What's in it for you?
This is an opportunity to make a meaningful impact on education while developing your leadership career within one of the UK's leading education charities.
- Lead a high-profile team responsible for assessment materials used by hundreds of thousands of learners each year.
- Work alongside subject experts and senior leaders, influencing strategic decisions and continuous improvement initiatives.
- A 35-hour working week with flexible, hybrid working.
- 25 days' annual leave, plus additional office closure in December and bank holidays.
- A fantastic pension with up to 11.5% employer contributions, wellbeing support, volunteering opportunities and extensive learning and development resources.
- The opportunity to join a range of employee networks including LGBTQ+, neurodiversity, disAbility, Empowering Women, Wellbeing, Ethnic Diversity and more.
- The chance to be part of a values-led organisation where your work helps create fair and reliable assessments for learners.
You'll thrive in this role if you have:
- Experience leading and developing teams, including coaching, performance management and creating development opportunities.
- Knowledge of assessment, education or similarly regulated environments where quality, accuracy and compliance are critical.
- Experience managing risks, resolving complex issues and delivering outcomes through others.
- The ability to analyse and interpret data to inform decisions and measure impact.
- Excellent communication and stakeholder management skills, with the confidence to influence at all levels and explain complex issues clearly.
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You'll enjoy this role if you're a collaborative leader who can bring people together, make informed decisions and balance strategic thinking with operational delivery.
Diversity and Inclusion Statement
At AQA, we are committed to fostering a workplace that celebrates diversity and promotes equity and inclusion. We believe that a diverse team brings richer perspectives and drives better outcomes. Our ED&I strategy ensures that everyone, regardless of religion, ethnicity, gender identity or expression, age, disability, sexual orientation or background, is valued, respected and empowered to thrive. We actively promote inclusive language, avoid stereotypes and strive for representation across all dimensions of diversity. We welcome applications from individuals of all backgrounds and lived experiences.
What's Next?
To apply, please submit your CV and supporting statement outlining how your experience aligns with the requirements of the role.
Application deadline: Applications will close at 23:59 on Monday 10 August
Interview process: Interviews will be over two stages from the week beginning 17 August, a teams interview followed by shortlisting, then a face to face interview in either the Manchester or Guildford office, whichever is closest to you.
Expected start date: as soon as you are available
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Full Job Description
Summary
Purpose:
The Senior Manager of Assessment leads and performance manages a team of Assessment Managers, Assessment Support Managers and/or Assessment Coordinators and is part of the Assessment Management Leadership Team. They are accountable for ensuring all activities relating to the assessment cycle for each subject are planned, monitored, measured, and managed effectively to deliver to customers and achieve Assessment’s objectives, and quality assure the work of their team to ensure error-free assessment materials. This role is accountable for the implementation of assessment quality activities within the subject group.
They work closely with colleagues across Assessment Management ensuring consistency and process adherence across all subject groups. They maintain strong links to other teams in Assessment, Associate Services, Operations, Standards and Awarding, Incident Management and Customer & Product teams. They will use their assessment, product and process knowledge to feed into wider business work to ensure AQA’s assessments are fit-for-purpose and appeal to customers. The role is a point of escalation for any issues that might impact the quality of an assessment or our ability to deliver accurate results to students and will represent the Assessment Leadership Team in projects and strategic initiatives around the business to champion assessment quality and best practice.
Landscape:
Each year over 2000 question papers, assessment artefacts, mark schemes and modified large print papers are created, quality assured and sent to press for domestic and international qualifications by teams across Assessment. These materials are sat by 100,000s of students across three examination series and are pivotal part of their next step in education.
The Assessment Management team sits within Assessment and is accountable for the end-to-end quality of all assessment materials from initial planning and creation to marking and awarding of results. Working with senior associates, they ensure they are error-free, valid, reliable and comply to strict regulatory conditions and implement improvements from robust analytical reviews. The team provide subject-assessment expertise on GQ qualifications to AQA to support work on redevelopment and reform as well as any external regulatory work. They work closely with internal teams across Assessment and COO as well as the wider business to champion assessment quality and best practice.
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Assessment Management is split into 7 subject groups; English, Maths, Science, Social Sciences, Humanities, Arts and Technology and Languages. The Senior Manager of Assessment role sits within one of these subject areas and reports to the Head of Assessment Management, working closely with other Senior Managers and Subject Assessment Leads.
Activities:
- Lead and manage the allocation of work across the subject group and the processes that are followed, looking to continuously improve them.
- Provides regular progress reports and ensures action plans are in place to manage delivery and resource effectively.
- Responsible for risk and issue management for the creation of assessment materials.
- Recruit and performance manage a team to ensure strong personal performance with high quality outcomes, good cultural fit and personal development.
- Provide coaching and support to Assessment Support Managers.
- Quality check the work of Assessment Managers, Assessment Support Manager and Assessment Coordinators (where applicable) to ensure high quality is delivered and feedback provided.
- Work with the Customer & Product teams to understand what customer expectations are, and with the Assessment Manager/Assessment Support Manager to create assessments that meet these expectations whilst still complying with all regulatory conditions.
- Contribute to leadership across the Assessment area and work closely with the Head of Assessment Management to determine and monitor activity, budget and resources needed, including for strategic activity.
- Act as a point of internal escalation for issues related to assessments, using knowledge and expertise to provide the right outcomes.
- Act a point of escalation for issues related to associate performance and delivery.
- Build and foster strong working relationships with colleagues and key business stakeholders and work closely with senior managers in other teams to ensure there is clarity on the service provided and deal with any issues which may arise during delivery.
- Coordinate and manage the work of the team related to series delivery and series incident management processes.
- Ensure consistency of work and process adherence within and across the subject groups, and own and manage the respective risks and issues that occur.
- Represents Assessment Management team on governance groups and manage the relationships with other stakeholders in monitoring, reporting and ensuring delivery to time and quality.
- Represent Assessment in series incident management, including sponsorship of series incidents, particularly involving live exam papers, to ensure AQA adopts a consistent and proportionate response that is fair to students. Ensure that the analysis of question paper errors, errata and reprints takes place, and lessons are learned and appropriate actions are taken.
- Understand and champion good assessment practice across the organisation, with a particular focus on promoting validity in assessments
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