Location: Remote (UK based with travel to schools)
Salary: Specialist (£60k to £65k pa equivalent)
Hours: Full Time (1 FTE / 37.5 hours a week)
Contract Type: Fixed-term for up to nine months
Closes: Thursday 12th November at 5pm
Nurtureuk is a charity dedicated to making nurture central to education and removing barriers to learning. Learn more at nurtureuk.org.
Responsibilities of our Senior Researcher
- Reviewing existing measures of young children’s social and emotional development, including the Boxall Profile, and what makes them effective and reliable for teachers to use
- Research and synthesise findings on exemplification materials for early years practitioners
- Working with partner schools to develop an effective, practical assessment tool
- Drafting and developing a new way of assessing social and emotional development
- Working with lead and partner schools to ground the tool in classroom practice and observation
- Developing exemplification materials that make the assessment practical and easy to use consistently
- Revising the tool iteratively in response to feedback and test results
- Testing and validating the assessment tool
- Designing a practical research and test plan to test the new tool
- Securing ethical approval and handling of children’s data safely, in line with safeguarding and data protection requirements
- Gathering evidence of reliability, including agreement between teachers, and of validity, including comparison with EYFS Profile and the Boxall Profile®
- Establishing age-related norms for interpreting results and ensuring the tool works fairly for different groups of children
- Working with partner schools to test the assessment tool and exemplification materials
- Writing up technical description and validation data into practitioner-friendly forms
What we're looking for:
- A professional with proven experience in the area of work outlined above
- A master’s degree or equivalent (or PhD / professional doctorate) in developmental, educational or child psychology, education or a related field
- Practical research related to child development and grounded in theory and practice
- Developing or validating questionnaires, rating scales and other age-related assessments, including testing their reliability and validity
- Quantitative analysis using statistical software
- Developing practical materials to explain a complex topic to non-specialists
- Knowledge of or experience using assessment instruments / psychometrics for social and emotional development, including the Boxall Profile®
- Experience working with early years practitioners and UK schools
Please ensure you read the Job Description and Person Specification for full details of this role.
What we can offer you:
- We offer a supportive environment with fully remote, flexible working, a £500 learning budget along with free LinkedIn Learning, and generous time off starting at 25 days holiday plus free days off for Christmas and your birthday.
£60,000 to £65,000 pa equivalent
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Senior Researcher - Early Years Social and Emotional Assessment employer: Nurtureuk
NurtureUk is an exceptional employer, offering a supportive and flexible remote working environment that prioritises employee well-being and professional growth. With a commitment to making a meaningful impact in education, employees enjoy a flat organisational structure that fosters direct access to senior leadership, alongside generous benefits such as 25 days of annual leave, a personal learning budget, and a culture that values diversity and inclusion.
