Director of Education (Maths)

About us

Parallel Academy is an ambitious charitable initiative founded by Simon Singh, best known as the author of Fermat s Last Theorem. We currently support over 3,000 students through our maths enrichment activities, around 700 of whom receive dedicated weekly, small-group online tutorials in The Parallel Academy. Our mission is to support students on our programmes to fulfil their mathematical potential, by providing them with the opportunity to develop their reasoning and problem-solving skills beyond the curriculum. Our students are motivated and ambitious. Although our maths programme is optional and takes place outside of school hours, students have an average attendance above 95%.

Overview

Our team is broadly divided into two arms, administrative and educational, and we are seeking a Director of Education to steer the latter. This is a senior role responsible for ensuring that our offerings are aligned to our expectations and pedagogical aims, and for helping to scale the project to reach thousands more students each year. We are a growing organisation and have made significant strides since our inception, but believe there is room to strengthen and expand our offering.

Person specification

We are searching for an experienced maths leader who is excited, not only to sustain our current model, but to help build and scale-up our work in different directions. We would love to find someone who:

• Understands and connects with our organisational mission
• Is a confident mathematician, able to captivate and inspire students from different backgrounds
• Is a team player with a can-do attitude
• Can act independently and decisively when the situation demands it
• Embraces responsibility across multiple areas, adapting to new situations as they arise
• Can communicate with different stakeholders skilfully and sensitively
• Is able to work productively in a fully remote setup

Key responsibilities

• Line-manage members of the core maths team , providing mentorship and support.
• Direct our growing team of tutors, from onboarding to training and week-to-week support, ensuring that all students benefit from consistently high standards of teaching.
• Develop enough awareness of the administrative side of our work to deputise for the COO when needed, and to suggest improvements across our day-to-day processes.
• Undertake key teaching responsibilities across the week, especially for high-tariff sessions (e.g. homework review sessions) that only our best tutors are entrusted with.
• Advise on and implement policies for working with schools during and after admissions, ensuring that schools remain engaged with us at key points in the year and holding them to account for providing necessary inputs (e.g. nominations, UKMT scores).
• Identify and develop relationships with external partners (school groups, maths hubs and other key organisations) to expand the reach of the Academy. Many of these will come from your own network of maths contacts.
• Help to shape and build on our ethos of high expectations, which translates into concrete policies regarding attendance, homework, participation and criteria for both admitting and removing students from our Tutorial Programme.
• Provide key input into new offerings such as a more ambitious primary programme, a Further Maths programme and university application support for sixth form students.

Undertake any other tasks commensurate with the role and which may be reasonably required.

Requirements

• BA and/or PGCE in Mathematics

Person specification

The successful candidate will:

• Have extensive teaching experience, preferably in a school-based setting
• Be a confident mathematician, able to captivate and inspire students from different backgrounds
• Possess proven leadership qualities, with the ability to act independently and decisively when the situation demands it
• Have experience in scaling up or building projects and organisations
• Be able to collaborate with external stakeholders skilfully and sensitively
• Be a team player with a can-do attitude
• Embrace responsibility across multiple areas, adapting to new situations as they arise
• Work productively in a fully remote setup
• Understand and connect with our organisational mission

How to apply

Please email your CV and cover letter, outlining how you meet the requirements of this position.