National Manager - CAS Scotland (Field Based)

Role context and purpose:

To lead the development and operation of the Network of Excellence for Scottish Primary and Secondary teachers of computing, manage the operation of Computing At School Scotland, and be an advocate for computing education at all levels.

Key responsibilities:

• Provide advice a development support to the CAS strategy within Scotland, providing local knowledge to support success;

• Developing and coordinating the operation of Secondary and Primary teacher hubs for computing science, building on the work of the PLAN C and CAS Barefoot programmes respectively, as well as the STEM hubs located in the colleges, to ensure hub leaders are appropriately resourced to successfully run their hubs;

• Collating best-practice materials from the hub networks and elsewhere and making these more widely available via e.g. GLOW and other networks;

• Coordinate the planning and organisation of the annual CAS Scotland conference and related events, drawing on the CAS Scotland membership;

• Build relationships with key stakeholders and provide day-to-day liaison with external organisations to represent CAS Scotland, in particular Education Scotland, the Scottish Qualifications Authority, the College Development Network, Skills Development Scotland, Scotland IS, Royal Society of Edinburgh, Scottish Informatics and Computer Science Alliance, and the Scottish Government;

• Managing means of communication between the membership, including on-line forum and newsletter, as well as publicising our work externally to the wider public.

• Co-ordinate and organise face-to-face and on-line meetings of the CAS Scotland Committee and wider Working Group, drawing participants from both schools and other organisations, to identify and take forward major objectives;

• Develop and implement a coherent membership model for CAS Scotland;

• Develop and implement an effective teacher training plan;

• Liaise with the BCS Academy of Computing and other CAS board and working members to identify both shared and individual aims and objectives;

SKILLS, QUALIFICATIONS & KNOWLEDGE:

Education & Qualifications

• Good first degree in computer science or related discipline

• Relevant teaching qualification

Experience

• Considerable experience of working in an environment involving computer science. Examples include teaching, training, software engineering, policy-making;

• Demonstrable experience leading groups of volunteers to achieve significant outcomes;

• Coordinating the activities of a distributed team using both online and offline methods and tools;

• Planning and organising public events and meetings.

• Experience of teaching or mentoring computing-related activities is desirable

Competencies & Skills

• Excellent communication skills, both written and oral, to enable communication of complex material in a clear and concise manner;

• Excellent organisational and interpersonal skills;

• Ability to deliver outcomes against set targets;

• Self-starting, with lots of initiative.

• Ability to network and influence to create effective partnerships with external organisations;

• Ability to deliver teacher training;

• Proven ability in developing teaching materials for computing;

• Ability to manage budgets.

Knowledge

• Key computer science principles including programming;

• Familiarity with arguments for computing as a mainstream part of the school curriculum;

• An awareness of general and CS-specific teaching and learning strategies is desirable;

• An awareness of school teaching environments is desirable.

SPECIAL CONDITIONS:

• Clean UK driving licence;
• Travel in and around Scotland to attend meetings and events;
• Some travel to London and Swindon may be required;
• Some evening and weekend work to attend events and member meetings

2 Year Fixed Term Contract.

Based in Scotland - FIeld Based Role