High School Academic Manager - SPARK Schools Support - 2023
SPARK Schools, South Africa

SPARK Schools is a social impact disruptor and is leading change in the education space through its network of affordable private schools. The SPARK Schools network provides transformational education innovation through Africa’s first blended learning model, which elevates student achievement and provides the tools teachers need to serve their students effectively.

The blended learning model, which combines classroom teaching and online instruction, allows teachers to anticipate student needs and equips schools to provide personalized education at an affordable cost. SPARK Schools is pioneering this transformative education model to ensure the accessibility of university and careers for all.

SPARK Schools is a high growth, mission and values-driven entrepreneurial organisation, operating 20 primary schools and 4 high schools and serving over 15,000 families in 2023. We are looking for dynamic people to join our team.

Requirements

Purpose of Role:

The High School Academic Manager oversees the schools' instructional and stakeholder experience outcomes. The role of the Academic Manager is to manage, coach, and support the Principals, emphasising excellence in scholar achievement, school culture, professional and leadership development, and staff, parent, and scholar experience. The academic manager is also responsible for the professional development of educators and instructional leaders network-wide. This role equips school leaders and educators to drive excellence and consistency in data-driven instruction through the implementation of SPARK’s personalised learning model.

The High School Academic Manager works closely with the functional teams in SPARK Support, SPARK Schools’ central office, to ensure excellent service to the schools and network-wide alignment in decision-making and execution.

Reports To: Head of Product: High Schools

Responsibilities:

• Manage and Coach Principals
  • Work with and through Principals and school leadership teams to drive scholar achievement and productive, positive school cultures.
  • Use a regular coaching cycle to build strong relationships with Principals that enable the leaders to meet their performance targets and model effective coaching to their own school leadership team.
  • Use research-based coaching practices in coaching leaders and work with the Head of School Achievement to codify SPARK Schools coaching and management practices.
  • Use leadership tools and surveys to assess leader strengths and areas of growth best.
  • Use scholar achievement and stakeholder experience data to determine goals with each leader and monitor progress toward goals.
  • Hold Principals to academic, professional, ethical, and other performance standards.

• Implement network-wide professional development.
  • Use scholar achievement data to identify network-wide and school-specific focus areas for professional development in partnership with instructional leaders and the School Achievement team.
  • Scope and plan centralised agendas and objectives for pre-service professional development, weekly professional development, and termly Data Days.
  • Provide training to instructional leaders and the School Achievement team on the See It, Name It, Do It (SINIDI) framework of professional development facilitation for consistency in training delivery.
  • Monitor the effectiveness and impact of professional development programs and prepare reports and recommendations related to outcomes and proposed improvements or action steps.
  • Where relevant, identify external suppliers or resources for professional development, evaluate their effectiveness, and initiate partnerships in line with SPARK’s business practices and budgets.
  • Develop Assistant Principals as instructional coaches alongside Principals.
  • Advise Principals as they coach and develop their school leadership team and Trailblazers (prospective school leaders) to ensure the strength of SPARK Schools’ internal leadership pipeline.

Operational support

• Assume Accountability for Scholar Achievement and Stakeholder Experience
  • Maintain a regular schedule of school visits to monitor and evaluate instruction and employees, parent, and scholar experience, as well as identify the highest leverage region-wide and school-specific action steps for implementation.
  • Collaborate with fellow School Achievement Managers to develop and implement standards, assessment, and performance metrics for instruction and stakeholder experience.
  • Ensure alignment of cultural and instructional practices across the network, in line with SPARK Schools practices, policies, and core values.
• Serve as a primary liaison between teams in SPARK Support and

Job Rewards and Benefits