Deputy House Manager in Manchester

Closing Date: 30th September 2026

Interview Date: w/c 12th October 2026

Start Date: As soon as possible

Salary: £51,773 to £57,137 (L1 – L5) plus Local Government Pension Scheme.

Location: Oasis Restore secure school in Rochester, Medway, Kent

Are you passionate about transforming the lives of the most vulnerable children? Do you want to be a founding staff member of our new secure school, the first of its kind? Can you see yourself taking responsibility for ensuring the safe functioning of the school, and the care and development of our children and the staff who work with them? Could you bring energy, authority and compassion to the care of the children at the school?

We are offering a uniquely exciting opportunity for a person with experience of children's residential care, social work or youth justice who is ready for a post in the team responsible for managing the care of the children and staff teams within Oasis Restore, the first secure school in England. Oasis Restore represents a revolution in youth justice: an opportunity for children within the criminal justice system to live and learn in a restorative environment that creates the potential for them to thrive in the future.

Our team of Deputy House Managers, working under the House Managers and wider Residential Leadership Team, will be dynamic, resilient, caring and skilled, able to organise, motivate and provide emotional containment to a large group of residential staff and to facilitate and participate fully in the life of the school, modelling excellent practice.

The school can accommodate up to 49 boys and girls across 12 student-style flats, and offers an intensively aspirational and therapeutic environment for children remanded or sentenced within the criminal justice system. It is dual registered as a 16-19 Academy and Secure Children's Home. The Deputy House Managers, working under a robust multi-disciplinary leadership team, provide the backbone of the residential care system around the children. These are key roles, providing a vital link between the leadership team and front line practice.

Who we are looking for

Your role as a Deputy House Manager offers a unique opportunity to be part of a comprehensive team at Oasis Restore, joining us as we continue to recruit a large team of residential staff and onboard a new cohort of students, taking up a crucial role in their care and development. It will be your role to inspire and develop staff practice, manage their activities, utilise our management information systems and provide safety, care and well-being for children while developing a sense of safety and boundaries in their work.

You will be an important figure for children across the school and particularly in one of the three houses, representing a kind, decent and caring source of authority, present and involved in their daily lives. You will be someone who can work well in complex, demanding and emotive situations. You will have excellent relational skills and will be naturally curious and keen to learn about your own and others' feelings and experiences. You will be a champion of high standard of Children's social care, with demonstrable experience of developing practice that delivers to Children's Homes Quality Standards. You will be someone who can think well under pressure and who can empower and contain others in their work. You will have a powerful belief in the value of restorative work and will be able to hold your hope and compassion for the children in the face of the challenges they will bring.

This role reports into the Residential Leadership team, and works closely with the wider Senior Leadership Team, alongside a team of specialists within education, care, and health. Alongside colleagues, you will manage a large team of Senior and Restore Practitioners. Your role will involve a significant responsibility for ensuring high quality standards of care for children and the healthy functioning of the whole school (including the home), chairing handovers, coordinating and ensuring the allocation of staff, managing the rota, holding reportees to account, providing support, presence and decision-making across the day and night, and working with staff to embed and sustain our restorative culture and achieving the very best standards as outlined in Children's Homes Regulations and Guidance.

You will be a champion of therapeutic practice, placing relationships at the heart of everything you do and be responsible for ensuring excellent standards of care throughout the school. You will be someone who cares about developing others, working on organisational, team, group, family and individual levels to foster real understanding, good relationships and communication, within our culture of benign enquiry. You will have a mature, reflective approach that aligns with the Restore Framework, our model of practice, aware of the conscious and unconscious impact of this very challenging work and the value of discovering its meaning. You will be committed to finding a way through, and never giving up.

Our Secure School

Oasis Restore is the country's first secure school; a proof-of-concept policy initiative funded by the Ministry of Justice (MoJ). Oasis Restore's mission is to transform the life chances of children aged 12-18 years in the criminal justice system through delivering psychologically informed, integrated practice that centres on trusted, safe relationships between staff and children. Oasis Restore is a learning community that embeds hope, stability, and opportunity for children beyond the secure school.

Our offer to you

• A mixture of one to one and group reflective practice, coaching & regular line management/supervision sessions
• Experience an Appraisal policy that decouples pay and performance.
• An elected staff forum to listen to, and act on staff feedback.
• Access to the Local Government Pensions Scheme (a competitive, defined benefit pension scheme)
• Access to a funded cash plan health scheme
• Access to an EAP service
• 33 days annual leave including bank holidays, rising to 35 days after two years.
• Subject to meeting basic eligibility criteria, be entitled to up to 8 weeks full-pay and 18 weeks half-pay paid maternity/adoption/shared parental leave (based broadly on the NHS Employers scheme).
• Subject to meeting basic eligibility criteria be entitled to up to 3 weeks fully paid paternity leave.
• Paid time off to attend antenatal appointments (those staff who are either pregnant or whose partner is pregnant)
• Have a structured and bespoke induction training plan plus a training offer bespoke to our context leading to a level 3 qualification in the therapeutic care of adolescents.
• Comprehensive de-escalation and restraint training (front line roles only)
• Supportive sick leave pay (based broadly on the length of service framework in the national 'Green Book' framework)
• Up to 5 days discretionary paid compassionate/emergency/general leave plus further discretionary unpaid leave
• Up to 4 weeks paid parental bereavement leave plus up to 5 days paid bereavement leave for the death of other specified close relatives.
• Blue Light Card (subject to meeting their eligibility criteria)
• Expenses and travel costs incurred as part of the working day (as appropriate, not including travel to work)
• Access to free car parking, season Ticket Loans, Specsavers eye care vouchers and a cycle to work scheme (subject to meeting their eligibility criteria).