Appointment of the Dean of the Carnegie School of Education

Dear candidate

Thank you for expressing an interest in joining Leeds Beckett University as Dean of the Carnegie School of Education.

Leeds Beckett University is committed to making a positive and decisive difference to people, organisations and communities through excellent education and research. We are ambitious. We aim to be recognised globally as an inclusive Anchor for the Leeds City Region, and as an outstanding university that supports its diverse student community to achieve excellent outcomes, and that generates research of impact and significance.

The Carnegie School of Education is committed to making a deep, beneficial impact within and beyond the education sector, by developing new approaches to improve outcomes for children, and to meet the needs of education professionals through our courses, partnerships, research and practice.

We seek a Dean of the Carnegie School of Education to lead the School and to build on its many successes. Our School offers Initial Teacher Education, Interdisciplinary Studies, Digital Transformative Education, and International and Global Studies.  The new Dean will lead our move to a newly refurbished and bespoke home at the heart of our Headingley campus which will become a hub for educators in the region.

As a member of the University Senior Management Group, the new Dean will report directly to the Vice Chancellor, and support the delivery of LBU’s strategic plan by  providing strategic and operational leadership and management of the School.

We seek candidates with an established record of teaching, research and/or professional practice in Education. You will need to demonstrate a strong commitment and belief in the power of education to transform lives, and the vision and strategic capability to deliver excellent outcomes for our students and stakeholders

If you are excited by this opportunity and ready to make a significant contribution to our University community then we would be delighted to hear from you. Our advising consultants at Anderson Quigley would be pleased to discuss the role with you in confidence and their details can be found on this site.

Leeds Beckett is a modern, professional university with a dedicated, diverse community. Our vision is to be a an excellent, accessible, globally-engaged university contributing positively to a thriving northern economy. Our mission is to ensure we use our knowledge and resources to make a positive and decisive difference to people, communities and organisations.

We are a community of around 28,000 students from over 140 countries and 2,800 staff, and our history dates back to the founding of Leeds Mechanics Institute in 1824. We are a major organisation in our region and the University contributes around £500m to the economy each year.

Leeds Beckett has:

• A bold, industrious spirit: We foster innovative thinking to create great graduates, exceptional employees, dynamic citizens and enterprising leaders.
• An environment enriched by research: Our world-leading and internationally-excellent research informs our curriculum and our students’ experience in all areas.
• A community dedicated to success: Our community is made up of people from a diverse mix of cultural and social backgrounds, brought together in a world-class learning environment.
• Excellent corporate services: Students and colleagues can access a range of professional services within our university, specifically designed to support the effective delivery of our academic provision.
• Safe and supportive networks: Our network of colleague and student groups provides safe and supportive environments in which to discuss issues relating to equality and inclusion.

Leeds is a vibrant, modern city with a rich industrial past and on the doorstep of natural beauty. It is the cultural, financial and commercial heart of West Yorkshire and has one of the most diverse economies of all the UK’s employment centres. Leeds is, and always will be, open for business and talent.

Teaching
Working in partnership with our students and the Students’ Union, we have transformed our undergraduate student experience and our students’ learning through exceptional and innovative academic practice and personalised support to our large and diverse student community.

Our teaching activity is organised into 11 Schools creating communities of committed staff and students who are passionate about their subject areas. Our courses feature collaborative, creative and practical learning in modern facilities that enable our students to develop themselves as enterprising citizens whose future contribution has a positive impact.

Research
Our research institutes and centres, spanning 11 Research Excellence Framework (REF) units of assessment, sustain world-leading and internationally-excellent research which informs our curriculum and our students’ experience in all areas. This research provides an enriched environment for an excellent research and teaching culture for all aspects of our students’ learning.

Corporate services
Students and colleagues can access a range of professional services within the University designed and operating to support the effective delivery of our academic provision.

Services for students include Libraries & Learning Innovation, Sport & Active Lifestyles, Student Services, Careers & Employability and Campuses & Residential Services.

Departments including Finance, Estates, Marketing & Communication, Information and Technology Services and Human Resources ensure the University runs efficiently, that colleagues get the support and advice they need, and services for students are accessible and focused on meeting their needs.

Our Schools
Our 10 Schools are:

• Leeds School of Arts
• School of Built Environment Engineering and Computing
• Leeds Business School
• School of Cultural Studies and Humanities
• Carnegie School of Education
• School of Events, Tourism and Hospitality Management
• School of Health
• Leeds Law School
• Leeds School of Social Sciences
• Carnegie School of Sport

Our campuses
We provide creative and contemporary learning environments packed with the latest technology, creating a focal point for new and innovative thinking.

City Campus: City Campus is in the heart of Leeds, ideally placed to connect with hundreds of businesses and organisations that offer work placements and employment opportunities to many of our students. The City Campus puts students and staff at the centre of a dynamic business community in a city with a thriving job market. Our award-winning buildings, the Rose Bowl and Broadcasting Place, are located at the City Campus, along with our new state-of-the- art Leeds School of Arts which opened in 2020.

Headingley Campus: Headingley campus, about two miles away from the city centre, is set in 100 acres of beautiful Parkland with historic buildings dating from 1752. The rich history and parkland setting coexists with modern sport science laboratories, animation and music studios and the latest computing labs. Our main sports facilities are based in Headingley alongside our iconic new Carnegie School of Sport. Plans are also in development for a new Carnegie School of Education on the Headingley campus.

Equality and Inclusion
Equality and inclusion are essential to our academic and business strengths. We ensure our University community is a place where everyone feels respected, valued and supported to achieve excellence.

We are committed to providing a vibrant, ethical and sustainable working and learning environment that values equality and inclusion and recognises the contribution everyone brings to our University community.

Our network of colleague and student groups help us to help others get the information and support they need. These groups provide a safe and supportive environment in which to discuss issues relating to equality inclusion, as well as provide support and networking and share best practice.

You can read more about our approach to equality and inclusion here.

Further information
You can read much more about Leeds Beckett University on our website here.

The Carnegie School of Education prides itself on thinking differently about education.  As such, we believe that we offer distinctive and creative courses that are designed to respond to the changes taking place in society, focusing on the diverse skills required by modern education professionals.  We are committed to having a deep, beneficial impact within and beyond the education sector, developing new approaches to improve outcomes for children through our courses, partnerships, research and practice.  We don’t do anything that does not in some way contribute positively to social justice.

The School currently has an income of over £14m. The majority of this (just under £13m) comes from tuition fees, with around £1.5m coming from research and enterprise.  This is an area that the School is keen and committed to grow, and has made great progress in, in recent years.

We are in an exciting time for the School. At the moment we are at the architectural design stage for our planned move across campus to a newly refurbished and bespoke Hall at the heart of our beautiful Headingley campus. We are currently working with project managers and architects to provide a new ‘home’ for our School, with custom spaces and sustainability-focused design choices, from which our School will continue its growth. Our vision is that our new home will become a hub for educators in the region: we already have the expertise, partnership and reputation in order to help fellow educators to improve the lives of children; the next phase of this vision is to complete the ‘place’ where this contribution to children’s lives will flourish. An incredibly exciting project on the horizon for the new Dean will be to lead the School into its new ‘home’ in Caedmon Hall sometime in the 2022/23 academic year.

From a teaching and learning perspective, the School is made up of four cognate areas:

• Initial Teacher Education: contains our UG and PG programmes which lead to the recommendation for QTS.  Student numbers are strong across both UG and PG, although the team are looking to bolster PGCE Secondary numbers, which are dipping nationally, including here.  We are exploring options for developing an international focus for this work, which will be new in this subject area.  In terms of research, a significant number of academic colleagues have either achieved, or are working towards, doctoral completion and a number of local research projects have emerged from ITE, most recently including initially small-scale work with Nike around children’s movement;
• Interdisciplinary Studies: contains both UG and Masters programmes, notably around the academic study of Education (non-QTS recommending), Childhood Studies, Early Years, Race and Education, and new UG programmes in SEND and Educational Psychology. The majority of our non-QTS PG provision sits in this area, with a healthy and growing suite of Masters courses.  Additionally, our Childhood Studies UG course is growing. We are always keen to push boundaries which reap benefits; for instance, in the growing numbers on our new Ed Psych and SEND UG courses.  Staff are research active in this area, again with many having achieved doctoral completion;
• Digital Transformative Education: We have a culture which celebrates experimentation, and we are always keen to lead the way into new subject areas, which is exemplified by the recent creation of the Digital Transformative Education subject area and our emerging work in Immersive Reality.  This is a new subject area which contains our purely online courses such as the Distance PGCE and PGSENCO provision, and our imminent purely online Masters courses in both Transformative Education and Digital Pedagogy.  It will also be home to our forthcoming Immersive Reality lab, and is currently the focal point of our ongoing relationship with the University of the Arctic group;
• International and Global Studies: contains our International Foundation Year provision and also our modern languages provision. The IFY provision is the largest international UG provision in the School and is, of course, an area that we want to grow.

Each of these four subject areas are led by a Head of Subject, and are home to their own academic staff, although a number of staff do teach across more than one subject area. Academic staff are supported to undertake research, including doctoral study.  All academics have an entitlement of time for scholarly activity, and we increase this for staff who are undertaking doctoral study – we really value the impact that contemporary research in our staff can have on our students as they enter the children’s workforce.

Our research has grown considerably over the last five years, and we are excited to see yet more sustained growth.  In order to ensure a coordinated approach to research and enterprise, we have created a Research Leadership Team (RLT), which is made up of key research staff in the School.  We have a number of active research centres, ordinarily led by Professors and supported by the majority of our academic staff who are additionally aligned with at least one of our centres:

• Our Story Makers Company was established in 2017 by academics, teachers and artists concerned with the lack of creative opportunities for young people inside and outside school, particularly those from socially underrepresented and economically disadvantaged communities. Its academic and practice-based research focuses on creative learning in education, researching with and alongside children through the use of drama and creative writing. In collaboration with children, teachers, artist educators, education leaders, cultural and community groups it seeks to create meaningful learning which relates to children’s lived experiences;
• Our Centre for Race, Education and Decoloniality (CRED) enables us to seek to understand the experiences of people of colour, including children, young people, teachers, education leaders and community groups. Through research, it seeks to inform education policy change, to decolonise and transform curricula to reflect the contributions and experiences of people of colour, nationally and internationally – in order to prepare all to live, learn and work in a racially and ethnically diverse world;
• Our Centre for Interdisciplinary research in Childhood, Education and Society (CIRCES) is concerned with conducting innovative research and promoting an interdisciplinary understanding of education, society and childhood.  Its focus is on education (formal and informal) and childhood (including children’s health, socialisation, families and children’s rights), and social conditions that affect children and families;
• CollectivED, the Centre for Mentoring, Coaching and Professional Learning aims to expand the available knowledge base on coaching, mentoring and collaborative professional development through research and develop new approaches to active knowledge exchange.  As part of this, the CollectivED Coaching Community is designed to support and empower experienced coaches who work with education professionals.
• Our Carnegie Centre of Excellence for Mental Health in Schools is focused on providing evidence-based solutions which address schools’, pupils and parents/carers needs. As such, it works with schools, organisations and professionals (and also the DfE) committed to ensuring that mental health difficulties do not limit success at school and beyond, and focuses on providing support and guidance for schools, including professional development for staff working in schools.

We have worked hard on our reputation.  In our region, when members of the children’s workforce think about the Carnegie School of Education, they foreground our commitment to social justice. This is key in everything we do. Our mission moving forward is to maintain, enhance and promote this vision for social justice to a wider audience, and to continue our commitment to improving the lives of children, both within and beyond our region.

Student and staff numbers

Current numbers are:

Students

• UG FT Home: circa 900
• UG FT International: circa 50
• PG FT Home: circa 550
• PG FT International: circa 65
• PG PT Home: circa 290
• Doctoral candidates: circa 90

Staff

• 60 FTE Academic staff
• 27 FTE administrative and pastoral support staff
• 11 FTE research and enterprise staff, including Professoriate
• FTE ‘Leaders in learning’ staff
• + part time hourly paid academic staff

Terms and conditions of service for Senior Staff are as determined by the Vice-Chancellor within a framework set by the Board of Governors.

• A competitive salary will be agreed with the successful candidate.
• Annual leave entitlement is 38 days plus bank holidays and University closure days
• Academic staff are eligible to join the Teachers’ Pension Scheme and there is an option for existing members of USS to remain in the USS scheme.

Probationary period
Appointment to this position may be subject to a probationary period of up to 12-months, in line with our probationary policy.  A copy of our probationary policy is available on our website or on request from Human Resources.

Pre-employment Health Assessment
Our University aims to ensure that all employees are placed in a job that is compatible with their health and physical abilities.  In accordance with the Equality Act, questions relating to health are asked following an offer of appointment.  All offers of appointment are subject to pre-employment health assessment.

Qualifications
In accordance with our pre-employment processes, it is University policy to verify qualifications for successful candidates.  We will need evidence of those qualifications required by the employee specification and claimed in the written application.

Anderson Quigley is acting as an employment advisor to the University. An executive search process is being carried out by Anderson Quigley in addition to the public advertisement.

Should you wish to discuss the role in strict confidence, please contact Elliott Rae on +44 (0)7584 078 534 or Sophie Rees on +44(0)7719 313 982.

The closing date for applications is noon on Friday 10 December 2021.

Applications should consist of:

• A full CV.
• A covering letter (maximum of two pages) outlining how you meet the points under the person specification.
• Please include details of two referees, though please note that we will not approach referees without your prior consent and only should you be shortlisted.
• Please complete the following online Equal Opportunities Monitoring Form.

Completed applications should be uploaded at www.andersonquigley.com/candidates using the reference number AQ1259.

Timetable