Children's Social Work Matters
Virtual School Team Manager
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Job Description
Post Ref: CC981
Please note: Internal, at risk or redeployee applicants will be seen in the first instance.
About the Opportunity
This is an exciting opportunity to join Calderdale Council’s Virtual School for Children Looked After.
Would you like to play a key leadership role in transforming educational outcomes for some of Calderdale's most vulnerable children and young people?
The Virtual School is committed to promoting the educational achievement, wellbeing and life chances of Children Looked After, Care Leavers, Previously Looked After Children, Children in Kinship Care and Children with a Social Worker. Through strong advocacy, high aspirations and effective partnership working, we strive to ensure that every child and young person has the opportunity to achieve their educational potential, develop confidence and secure positive futures. We are proud of our commitment to delivering an outstanding service and ensuring that children and young people achieve the very best educational and wider outcomes wherever they are placed.
Role Overview
We are seeking to appoint a highly committed, experienced and inspirational Team Manager to work alongside the Head of the Virtual School in providing strategic leadership and operational management for this expanding service. This is an exciting opportunity to influence practice across education, social care and partner agencies.
Key Responsibilities
- Provide day-to-day leadership and management of the Virtual School team, ensuring high standards of practice, performance and service delivery.
- Support the Head of the Virtual School in ensuring the Local Authority meets its statutory responsibilities for Children Looked After, Previously Looked After Children and Children in Kinship Care, within an increasingly complex and evolving national framework.
- Lead on quality assurance, performance monitoring and service improvement, with particular responsibility for ensuring high-quality Personal Education Plans (PEPs), effective use of Pupil Premium Plus funding and robust systems that demonstrate positive impact on children's outcomes.
- Work closely with schools, social care teams, carers and other partners to improve attendance, attainment, achievement, participation and inclusion.
- Provide support, challenge and professional guidance to schools, Children's Services colleagues and foster carers, promoting high aspirations and ensuring that educational achievement remains central to planning for vulnerable children and young people.
- Be skilled in building effective partnerships, influencing decision making and driving improvement across services.
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Role Requirements
This role is essential in maintaining and strengthening the capacity of the Virtual School as its statutory responsibilities continue to grow. The successful candidate will play a pivotal role in ensuring the service continues to deliver excellent outcomes and effective support for children, families and professionals.
If you are an experienced leader with the vision, commitment and passion to champion vulnerable learners and improve life chances, we would love to hear from you.
Commitment to Safeguarding
We are committed to safeguarding and promoting the welfare of children, young people and vulnerable adults and expect all staff to share this commitment. Applicants to posts that are exempt from the Rehabilitation of Offenders Act will require a DBS from the Disclosure and Barring Service before the appointment is confirmed.
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Important Details
- Closing Date: Monday 24th August 2026
- Interviews: TBC
- Location: UK
- Right to Work: Candidates must evidence their right to work in the UK prior to commencing employment, either as a UK or Irish citizen, under the EU Settlement scheme or having secured any other relevant work visa.
- Sponsorship: If you do not have the right to work in the UK, you must consider your own eligibility for sponsorship for a particular role through the Skilled Worker visa route before applying. To be eligible for sponsorship you'll usually need to be paid the standard salary rate of at least £41,700 per year (unless exceptions apply) and meet the other eligibility criteria.
- Professional Membership: Calderdale will reimburse the post holders required professional membership, annually.
- Digital Interviews: We may utilise digital interview methods.
- Inclusion and Flexibility: As part of our Vision (https://www.calderdale.gov.uk/vision/) we aim to be a talented, resilient and inclusive community. We welcome applications from all and offer a variety of flexible working / job share opportunities.
- Application Process: All applications are anonymised before being seen by the selection panel. We ask that all applications are written by the candidate and that Artificial Intelligence (AI) use is limited, unless assistance is required as a reasonable adjustment for a disability. Content should be truthful, accurate, evidence based and not embellished – see guidance.
- Support: For support on your application please read our Application Booklet or visit our Employment Hub.
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