**INTERNAL APPLICATIONS ONLY** Virtual School Learning Advocate in Walthamstow

Organisation: London Borough of Waltham Forest

Salary: SO2 £40,182 - £41,133

Contract Type: Full-time/Permanent

Working hours per week: 36 hrs

Weeks per year: 52

Application Deadline: 13/05/2026

Proposed Interview Date(s): w/c 18/05/2026 (tbc)

Reference: 2117

About Us:

Bursting with culture, energy, and opportunity, the London Borough of Waltham Forest is a fantastic and exciting place to work. We are a highly ambitious borough. Driven by culture and the innate creativity of our residents, we have developed new and innovative ways to build our communities. Our Council is relentlessly resident-focused, insight-led, digitally driven and commercially minded; a Council focused on meeting the needs of our existing and future residents.

London Borough of Waltham Forest is one of the Mayor of London’s Good Work Standard employers. This accreditation is proof of our commitment to creating a healthy, fair and inclusive workplace. This includes fair pay and conditions, workplace well-being, skills and progression and diversity and recruitment.

About the role:

This is an exciting opportunity to join the Virtual School as a Learning Advocate. The purpose of this role is to help drive the best possible experiences and outcomes for children whose lived experiences and family circumstances have made it much harder for them to fulfil their potential and thrive. This newly created post will have a particular focus on helping the Virtual School meet its new statutory duties to promote the education of children in Kinship Care, working across the children in care, children with a social worker and previously looked after cohorts of children to understand the educational experiences and barriers facing children living with relatives that aren’t their parents, whether as connected persons foster carers, special guardians or by private family arrangement. This role will involve being a champion for inclusion in education and equitable support for vulnerable children, working with schools, social workers, foster carers and many others to ensure that everyone understands the challenges that our children and young people face, and intervening through direct intervention, meetings, training and wider activities in pursuit of that goal.

Key Responsibilities:

• Oversee a cohort of children with a focus on kinship care, including previously looked after children, children with a social worker and children in care living with kinship carers.
• Work collaboratively with schools, social workers, carers and other services to promote high educational aspirations and intervene promptly to prevent or overcome difficulties and challenges.
• Contribute to the Virtual School's role in promoting inclusive practices, including trauma-informed and attachment-aware approaches, as well as involvement in training for schools, social workers and foster carers in understanding their role in supporting the education of looked after children.

Qualifications and Requirements:

To be considered for this position, you should meet the following requirements:

• A passion for education, and a minimum of 2 years' experience working in a school or other education setting.
• Confident ability to communicate verbally and in writing along with the ability to advocate for children in care in a variety of professional settings.
• Although we support flexible and hybrid working, this is not a remote-working role and the successful candidate will be expected to be based in the borough much of the time, working in the Town Hall and visiting schools and education settings as needed.
• We would especially welcome applicants who are care-experienced or have lived-experience of children's social care.

Terms and conditions:

The below terms and conditions apply to this role:

• Satisfactory employment references and CIFAS identity checks;
• Satisfactory declaration of interest;
• This role is subject to safer recruitment practices as it involves work with children.
• Satisfactory Enhanced DBS check;

How to Apply:

Interested candidates are invited to submit their applications online by pressing the ‘Apply’ button below. This includes a supporting statement that outlines to us how your skills and experience make you a good candidate for this vacancy. We reserve the right to close this vacancy early if we receive sufficient applications for the role. Therefore, if you are interested, please submit your application as early as possible.

Equal Opportunity Employer:

Waltham Forest is a diverse borough where diversity is valued and is integral to both service delivery and employment of its staff. The Council is proud of its rich mix of communities and as the largest employer in the area, it works hard to respond to the changing needs of its population. We use our statutory duties on race, gender and disability equality and best practice in respect of age, faith and sexual orientation to ensure equality of opportunity in the workplace. The Council is committed to meeting its 4 equality objectives:

• Promoting equality of opportunity
• Opposing all forms of discrimination, intolerance and disadvantage
• Ensuring our workforce reflects the diverse communities of Waltham Forest at all levels.
• Providing fair, appropriate, accessible and excellent Services to all.

Respecting Diversity is a core Council value.

To support the above and reduce the risk of bias in its recruitment activities, the council is operating an anonymous shortlisting process, which hides personal information that can identify individuals until their application has been considered for shortlisting. The council also operates a scheme whereby, for jobs graded up to and including scale SO2, internal candidates are considered first. This includes those candidates who self-identify as having a disability for the purposes of the Disability Confident scheme. For more information, please refer to our recruitment and selection policy.

We are keen to support employees to balance their working life with other commitments. Therefore, wherever possible, we will consider working arrangements that suit an individual's personal circumstances whilst still meeting the needs of the Council. If you would like to discuss the possible flexible working options that might be applicable to this role, please contact the person named below or feel free to discuss this during your interview.

Contact Information:

If you have any questions about this vacancy or the application process, please contact David Aizenberg, Virtual School Headteacher, at david.aizenberg@walthamforest.gov.uk. If you have any technical issues when trying to apply for this post, please contact our Recruitment Team via email at recruitment@walthamforest.gov.uk. The Council’s preference is for online application. However, if you have a disability and are unable to complete an online application, please email recruitment@walthamforest.gov.uk so we can arrange an alternative application method.

Fraud Awareness Notice:

The London Borough of Waltham Forest only advertises vacancies via our official website and approved recruitment platforms (e.g. Jobsgopublic). We will never ask for payment or request sensitive personal or financial information as part of our recruitment process. If you are contacted by a third party claiming to represent the Council, please verify the vacancy via our official careers website before sharing any information. If you have concerns about a job advert or communication, please report it to: fraud@walthamforest.gov.uk