Information Systems Team Leader - Maternity Cover

The School is seeking to appoint a full-time Information Systems Team Leader on a maternity cover contract estimated to run from 2 December 2024 – 31 July 2025, though the precise dates will be subject to change.

The Information Systems Team Leader is responsible for the administration and maintenance of the School’s information and communications systems. 

The position will suit candidates with strong IT skills and proven success in a similar information systems support or data administration role. It will be of particular interest to those who are able to demonstrate that they can learn new systems quickly, have a passion for maintaining the quality of data and can evidence an ability to learn and understand the structure of complex database systems. 

The Information Systems Team Leader line manages the full time Office Administrator and coordinates the work of an external information systems consultant on whom the team can call for extra support or project work.

JOB DESCRIPTION

MIS

 The School’s current management information system (MIS) is PASS / 3Sys developed and supported by West Country Business Systems (www.wcbs.co.uk). It provides an integrated platform for storing administrative, academic and financial information. Access to the data stored in PASS is possible via two separate user interfaces: a Windows based desktop system (PASS for Windows) and a web-based interface (3Sys Academic). Both interfaces operate on the same SQL database so information can be viewed and edited using either system. The data is also available for use in other systems, to be extracted either through ODBC queries or system reports.

Website

The School’s bespoke website (www.sjcs.co.uk), which has recently undergone an extensive rebuild in Drupal v10, is divided into three main areas: public-facing pages which seek to describe the school to prospective parents and their children; internal pages geared to delivering information to current parents efficiently and succinctly; staff pages to be used as reference points for forms and policy documents. The School has full control over the content of the site and the Information Systems Team Leader is heavily involved in the upkeep of the site using the content management system as well as in the development and testing of new functionality, overseeing the day to day relationship with the School’s web development agency (Kiss Comms Ltd). While prior knowledge of Drupal and HTML is not a necessity, candidates must be able to demonstrate an understanding of the functions and structure of a content management system.

Parent Communication

Frequent, informative, professional and efficient communication with current parents is key to the smooth running of their children’s day-to-day activities. The password-protected Parent Portal area of the school website provides secure access to information which has been filtered as relevant to each family. The Information Systems Team Leader will direct the work of the Office Administrator in administering this process of parent communication.

Co-curricular Clubs

The School is proud to be able to offer a wide range of co-curricular activities throughout the year (approximately 90 across the year) which are very popular with pupils and parents alike. As each club has limited capacity, a ballot sign-up system has been developed, in consultation with parents over a number of years, which also takes into account the history of previous membership and waiting lists. The system currently works within Excel and the School would like to investigate the market to see if an off-the-shelf package could provide the same functionality. 

Other Systems

In addition to the main MIS, the School also uses a number of other systems, the majority of which are cloud-based and automatically link to the MIS via a service called ‘Wonde’. The Information Systems Team Leader, with the support of the Office Administrator, will administer the use of these systems. For any systems which cannot integrate directly with the MIS via Wonde (e.g. GL Assessments), the Information Systems Team Leader will oversee the work of the Office Administrator to keep these systems up to date.

Hours

The Office Administrator works approximately 34 weeks per year (term time), plus an additional 8 weeks outside of term time, according to the needs of the School and as directed by the Director of Operations.

The School is open Monday to Friday from 8:00am until 6:00pm. The normal working hours for the Office Administrator will be 8:30am-4:30pm Monday to Friday, though they may be called on to cover for absent colleagues outside of these times, e.g. staffing the reception desk between 4:30-6:00pm. There will be a daily 30-minute unpaid lunch break, totalling a working week of 37.5 hours. As with all staff, there might be an occasional need for Saturday morning working, e.g. when entry tests occur, or evening working for e.g. parents’ evening, plays or concerts.

Salary

The salary range for full time, 52 weeks will be in the range between £30,950-35,330. The actual salary for this role will be based on 37.5 hours worked per week for 47.1 weeks per year (34 weeks term-time work, 8 weeks non-term-time work and 5.1 weeks paid holiday), which is equivalent to 90.58% of full time. The actual salary range will therefore be 28,034-32,000, dependent on skills and competency. Salaries are paid in arrears in 12 equal monthly instalments.

Applications

A letter of application (preferably handwritten) should be sent with a fully completed application form (see ‘Application and Recruitment Process Explanatory Notes’) to Mr Alex Loria, Director of Operations, St John's College School, 75 Grange Road, Cambridge CB3 9AB (recruitment@sjcs.co.uk).

Long-list candidates will be invited to attend a first-round interview. Those who are successful after the long-list stage will be invited to complete a skills assessment to inform the short-listing decision. References will be taken up on short-listed candidates who will be invited to return a second-round interview, including a tour of the school and the final interview itself which will include questions relating to safeguarding children.

All reasonable interview expenses will be reimbursed by the School.

The School reserves the right to make appointment before the application deadline has been reached.

St John’s College School is committed to safeguarding and promoting the welfare of children.

Applicants must be willing to undergo child protection screening appropriate to the post, including checks with past employers and the Disclosure and Barring Service.

All appointments are subject to a criminal background check and proof of qualifications in accordance with the requirements of the Children Act.