Head of MAT and School Partnerships

Location: Flexible: monthly co-working days in London and additional regular stakeholder meetings as required nationwide.

Hours: Full time; 37.5 hours a week, We are happy to consider requests for flexible or part time working.

Contract: Permanent

ABOUT THE ROLE

Role overview

The Head of MAT and School Partnerships will build and lead a high-impact portfolio of strategic MAT partnerships that improve recruitment, retention and long-term success for career change teachers while strengthening outcomes for schools and pupils. This is a pivotal leadership role at the heart of Now Teach’s next phase of growth and impact. The postholder will play a central role in shaping how we work with MATs nationally and how career change teachers are recruited, supported and retained within schools serving disadvantaged communities. You will also work closely with the Director of Network and Head of Impact to develop a school engagement, impact and advocacy strategy across the 500 schools where our 1,000-strong Now Teacher Network currently teach.

In this role you will…

• Lead the design, delivery and evolution of Now Teach’s MAT partnership strategy aimed at ensuring Now Teacher impact in schools.
• Support teams to deliver on their agreed recruitment targets and network offer commitments, building a portfolio of engaged partners who get it right for their career change teachers.
• Create and maintain strategic relationships, act as a sector expert for growth opportunities, influence and negotiate at senior levels and demonstrate excellent communication skills.
• Build customer loyalty and enhance MAT and school advocacy and our impact.

Strategic Leadership

• Lead the further development, execution and continuous improvement of the MAT and School strategy.
• Contribute insight that will support us to increase our footprint in schools serving areas of greater socio-economic disadvantage.
• Use partnership insight and data to inform organisational strategy and decision-making.
• As a member of the extended leadership team, contribute to wider organisational planning, decision-making and strategic development.

Partner Development and Account Management

• Identify and action external landscape opportunities leading on relationships with relevant sector partners.
• Build and manage a high-quality pipeline of prospective MAT partners who embed the Now Teach model successfully and champion its impact across the sector.
• Shape the development of CRM and partnership management systems that enable high-quality, scalable account management.
• Maintain robust partnership governance, ensuring compliance with contractual agreements and organisational standards.
• Design and deliver an approach for engaging existing partner schools to strengthen relationships and maximise Network impact.
• Oversee a suite of messaging and materials that can be used to brief external audiences and pitch to potential partners supported by Now Teach Communications colleagues.
• Manage a lighter touch relationship rhythm with a wider set of training providers in our portfolio.

Cross-Organisational Delivery

• Define and embed scalable partnership delivery models across recruitment and network teams to ensure successful delivery of agreed partnership models with up to 8 priority partners in year 1 growing to up to 15 over the next 3 years.
• Work with the Leadership team to implement required changes: by 2030, 70% of new Now Teach recruits are placed with priority partners and experience an integrated Network offer achieving sector-leading satisfaction scores from Now Teachers and partner schools.
• Deliver on our ambition for 60% of all new Now Teachers to be teaching in schools serving areas of greater disadvantage by 2030.

Business Development & External Influence

• Secure partnership income targets, negotiate partnership contributions and drive commercial sustainability, working with COO/Finance Manager on ongoing cost models.
• Position Now Teach as a leading strategic partner for MATs seeking to recruit and retain high-quality career change teachers.
• Represent Now Teach across the education sector, building credibility and influence with MAT leaders, system partners and sector stakeholders.
• Maintain deep understanding of MAT priorities, workforce challenges and sector developments.
• Work closely with the Head of Impact to monitor and evaluate partnership work.
• Identify insights and trends that support continuous improvement and work collaboratively across teams to iterate our future partnership models.
• Deliver and monitor data sharing agreements with priority partners working closely with our Data Manager and Head of Technology to ensure high quality and robust data sets.
• Monitor and report on pipeline progress and established success metrics as part of the leadership team, course correcting as required.

PERSON SPECIFICATION

Who you are

• You thrive when operating in ambiguity and can implement new approaches from the ground up.
• You enjoy being part of a small team where people work together to drive work forward.
• You are self-directed and comfortable leading complex workstreams independently.
• You are credible operating with senior education leaders and understand the realities facing MATs and schools.
• You’re skilled at aligning colleagues (internally and externally) around a shared delivery plan.
• You’re committed to your own personal and professional development.
• You’re passionate about ensuring that schools and students benefit from the inspiring professional and life experience of career change teachers.

What you’ll need to succeed

• Ability to think strategically and spot opportunities to maximise organisational impact.
• Proven track record of translating strategy into scalable operational delivery and measurable impact.
• Proven experience building and managing senior strategic partnerships, ideally within education, public sector or mission-driven organisations to achieve success metrics.
• Experience influencing senior stakeholders including CEOs, MAT executives or system leaders and shaping compelling propositions.
• Strong commercial acumen and negotiation capability.
• A relentless focus on exceptional partner experience and reputation enhancement.
• Strong ability to lead through influence across cross-functional teams and external stakeholders.
• A commitment to promoting equality, diversity, and inclusion.

In return we offer you

As well as flexible working and a great culture, we offer a wide range of benefits including 25 days annual leave per year (plus bank holidays), an additional 3 days for Christmas closure, a pension scheme with a generous 11% employer contribution, enhanced parental leave policies, a rewards platform with employee discounts, access to an Employee Assistance Programme and an annual professional development budget for each employee.

Working arrangements

Full time/part time role, flexible working patterns possible. Now Teach are supported to work flexibly at co-working spaces or at home as needed with monthly working days in London. You will be required to cover your own travel expenses to London.

Diversity, Equity & Inclusion

Now Teach strives to be a workplace that is diverse, equitable and inclusive where we can ALL be ourselves. We encourage applications from people of all backgrounds, ethnicities, ages, gender identities, stages of life and those with hidden or visible disabilities. We are committed to providing reasonable adjustments throughout our recruitment process and we’ll endeavor to be as accommodating as possible. If you would like to discuss specific requirements, please contact us and ask to speak to the Operations Team. All applicants must have an existing Right to Work in the UK.

Safe Recruitment Procedure

Now Teach are committed to safeguarding and promoting the welfare of children and young people. To meet this responsibility, we follow a rigorous selection process, and all successful candidates will be subject to a Basic DBS check.