Catering Manager

The Kings Academy (part of Emmanuel Schools Foundation) serves a wide-ranging catchment in Middlesbrough, as well as providing an inclusive environment for students with special educational needs in specialist provisions for visual impairment, deaf and hearing impairment and higher learning needs. Inspired by our Christian ethos, which values everyone as equal in the sight of God, we seek to provide a supportive environment where every individual is challenged to discover their unique gifts and talents and inspired to excel and achieve their unique potential.

We are now looking for our next Catering Manager to lead and manage our fantastic catering team, who prepare and serve hundreds of meals for students and staff every school day. The role offers an excellent opportunity for the right person to add fresh ideas and enthusiasm to take our catering operations to the next level. In particular we are looking for someone with the following attributes. Could this be you?

The role offers an excellent opportunity for the right person to build on the good work of the previous postholder, add fresh ideas and enthusiasm and take our catering operations to the next level. In particular, the following attributes are especially important:

• Strong people manager able to work with and through a varied team to bring about service improvements and changes

• Previous experience of leading and delivering large scale, cost effective catering operations in schools or a similar environment

• Able to bring fresh ideas to our service offerings and to engage positively with customer feedback and comments
• Able to build strong and effective relationships with colleagues at all levels and act as a role model to our students

Summary of role

• Responsible for delivering an excellent catering service throughout the Academy for students, staff and visitors through high quality, healthy and innovative menus in line with current Government guidelines

Responsibilities

• Overall leadership and management of the catering team
• Ensuring that the right people, with the right skills are deployed at the right time in the right place(s) to deliver a top quality catering service within a defined staff budget
• Planning menus in advance of each academic year which are high quality, healthy, attractive and affordable, comply with School Food Standards and can be flexed to meet specific dietary requirements
• Preparation, cooking and service of good quality and healthy food, as applicable to a choice menu and full refreshment service at lunchtime and other times of the day as required
• Ensure the correct serving, storage and disposal of food monitoring the quality of the product, service and hygiene
• Oversight of the serveries during meals service, ensuring that food and beverages are presented attractively to maximise take up, shortages are swiftly addressed and being available to deal with customer queries
• General supervision of kitchen premises and staff to ensure that safe and hygienic working practices are consistently and routinely undertaken and maintained
• Catering and hospitality for Academy functions as required
• Ordering of food, stock control and waste management
• Checking and recording all food and other goods received, and where necessary, reporting and discrepancy or quality defect
• Ensuring the catering operations and provision operate in line with current Government legislation and guidelines as amended from time to time and Academy requirements, especially in relation to Health and Safety and Food Hygiene
• Acting as the lead point of contact for environmental health and health and safety inspections and audits
• Management of food costs to keep within the food cost budget, minimising waste
• Proactively research school food trends and developments. e.g. menus, tastes, global cuisines
• Positively engage with students and staff and their feedback to identify and plan service developments
• Take the initiative to consider and activate ways and approaches to encouraging healthy eating amongst the student cohort
• Induction training of new staff and development of craft skills to existing staff
• Maintaining own professional competence and compliance and ensuring team members do the same

Skills

• Food preparation and cooking at large scale
• Menu planning, costing and development
• Display of food and drink
• Customer service
• Effective communication skills (oral and written)
• Team leadership
• Performance management
• Negotiation
• Financially astute and accountable
• Confident user of technology (Microsoft Office, cashless catering system)

Knowledge

• Nutrition, allergens and dietary needs as applicable to schools
• Health, safety and hygiene as applicable to catering operations
• Appreciates the importance of safeguarding and confidentiality in a schools context

Experience

• Large scale catering operations leadership
• Previous experience working in school catering (desirable)

Qualifications

• Enhanced DBS check required to be able to take up role
• Level 3 qualification or above in Catering and Food Preparation
• Level 3 qualification or above in Food Hygiene/ Managing Food Safety in Catering
• Level 2 qualifications or above in English and Maths
• Up to date food allergen knowledge and training
• Eligibility to work in the UK

Attitude and Ethos

• Able to work in a pressured, deadline focused environment, being flexible to respond to changing circumstances and help his or her team to thrive through changes
• Willing to take ownership of situations and projects, being solution focused to overcome challenges
• Impeccable punctuality and role model for our students
• Aligned to our inclusive, future focused Christian ethos
• Self motivated, resilient and tenacious, able to work independently and collaborative as part of our dedicated staff team

AMRT1_UKCT