Director, Schools

Bridge Nigeria

Bridge (or Bridge International Academies) partners with parents and communities to create powerful, transformative schools that guarantee that all pupils, regardless of their parents’ income, education or the language they speak at home, are supported in realising their full potential, and can enjoy a gateway to success.

We create ‘community schools’ that provide life-changing education which transforms lives and opens the door to a successful future for our pupils. We do this by delivering academic excellence through accelerated learning, leadership skills development and providing a caring environment that supports growth. We empower a network of committed, trained and prepared teachers while leveraging technology. Our pedagogical techniques also are advanced and in line with best practice, and we deploy world class lessons to develop the most effective teacher training and support techniques, all with the aim of creating a truly pupil-centred classroom.

Since opening our first schools in Ijegun and Ikorodu, Lagos in 2015, our pupils have continued to exceed expectations and excel. Pupils at Bridge Nigeria have consistently achieved top performance in the National Common Entrance Examinations, receiving merit scholarships at Lead-Forte Gate College and winning places at some of the top secondary schools in the country, including King’s and Queen’s Colleges.

In Bridge, we believe that quality education has the power to transform the future of Nigeria’s youth. In joining us, you will become part of a team of dynamic and passionate Nigerians who are taking concrete action to help ensure a better future for all of Nigeria.

Schools

Schools are the heart of our work. The team is mandated to inspire teachers to teach with passion, pupils to learn with purpose, parents to believe in a better future for their children, and communities to become the change they want to see in the world. To achieve this vision, the team ensures schools are smoothly run - the school team is motivated and inspired, delivering life-changing lessons, creating an experience that makes parents stay with us, and also cultivating interest and excitement in our work in communities where we serve. Schools are responsible for ensuring all of the work created by our expert teams, including Instructional Design, Leadership & Development, Technology, Communications, Creative and Insight, are used in each school, and each school is managed to achieve its goal of ensuring every child enjoys a learning environment that develops her core skills, knowledge and confidence. The performance of the entire organization is led by the Schools Group, which is responsible for the day-to-day management of each school. Schools work to strengthen school enrollment and student retention, ensuring every school is regarded as the strongest school in its neighbourhood and delivers improved learning outcomes for children, and earns the trust of the parents. We engage with school leaders and teachers every day, ensuring ongoing professional development, performance management, and intensive coaching. We are always seeking effective ways of ensuring every school is supported with data-driven practices. We measure our success through both the financial sustainability of the school and the learning outcomes of the children in the classroom. We are performance-driven.

About

the Role

The Director, Schools is responsible for the performance management of every school in the territory. This includes school management, academic programming, school programming, staff professional development, regulatory compliance, commercial sustainability, and parent and community engagement in every school we support. You have incredible responsibility for the integrated delivery of all our programming in each school, for each teacher, and for each child.

Consequently, your focus on using data to drive performance, constant coaching to change behaviour, and rigorous implementation of core school programs is critical. The team you supervise is in schools each day, providing ongoing coaching and mentoring, specific performance feedback as well as continuous group and personal training. You manage one of the largest teams in the company, led by the field team of School Supervisors that give daily support to each school.

In this role, you also engage with all stakeholders of the schools under your care, including government officials, parents, and community groups as may be required, just as your school supervisors do within the community of each school.

Instructional leadership is a core part of your remit, ensuring that school leaders and teachers are delivering on our promise to ensure each child has the opportunity to learn, which only happens when each teacher uses the right materials at the right time each day, listens and responding to students’ learning, and is supported by the school leader in this practice daily.

Your role is the nexus of all that we do, ensuring the implementation and results of our overall programming. Using big data that provides visibility into everyday teaching practices and school management, you work with your direct supervisory staff to improve the performance of each school with the goal of student performance and character development in mind, as well as each school’s financial sustainability – and provide feedback on core programming to our design teams.

This team is laser-focused on outcomes, inherently collaborative in nature, loves fostering leadership in others, is unwaveringly committed to ensuring a quality education for our pupils, and is excited about creating incredible learning interventions that drive positive behaviour and mindset change in adults. You will flourish on this team if you are: a team player, hyper-focused on results, flexible in a dynamic environment, and have fun while working hard.

This role reports to the Program Managing Director and VP of Schools.

What You Will Do

Be responsible for the success of schools in your territory. Success is defined by (i) achieving excellence in all School Management metrics, (ii) meeting or exceeding ambitious learning outcome targets, and (iii) building a culture of positive community and parent engagement.

Ensure each Supervisor delivers on their oversight of schools and individual KPIs. Their schools should deliver the promise of learning and holistic development for children, have a strong and high-performing cohort of teachers, operate within their budget and sustain enrollment necessary for financial sustainability;

Be responsible for the management of direct reporting lines with School Supervisors, L&D Manager, and Academic Manager

Use data from multiple sources to ensure that academic programming viz.: offerings, lesson quality, teacher support, learning innovation, etc. are robust, adhere to regulatory guidelines, contextualized to the territory, and lead to outsized learning outcomes for all pupils, throughout the year.

Use data from multiple sources to ensure Supervisors are effectively managing their schools and creating safe learning environments.

Be in schools 20% of the time - observing teaching, observing management, and engaging with stakeholders, including government officials, parents, and community groups.

When observing or holding meetings, use rubrics or other documents to support structured observation, reporting, feedback and coaching.

Support specific school events, including collaborating on programming for such events as school opening celebrations, parent-teacher conferences and school closing celebrations, as well as community showcases and participation in co-curricular competitions.

Ensure school health, and enrollment efforts are effective in delivering on targets.

Ensure local regulatory processes are followed, including environmental & social standards, as well as national regulations.

Ensure school staff and students are prepared to sit in government-proctored exams, as they may occur on a termly/semester basis, and with particular attention to national examinations.

Ensure that leadership & development sessions are delivered to schools during the course of the school year, and during induction training for new staff. Supervisors should use the materials and programming developed by the Leadership & Development team.

Work with the Leadership & Development team to provide, and facilitate ongoing professional development for Supervisors

Support schools through the transition of staff, including school leaders and teachers; work with local government and other local organizations as needed.

Ensure school leaders are actively building a pipeline of school staff candidates, leveraging parents, local government leaders and other local organizations.

Ensure schools are working directly with country, state or local government leadership, teacher training centres or regional organizations to support sourcing candidates for school staff.

Supervise school budget and optimization, prevent fraud and ensure financial discipline among the Schools group

Other duties that may be assigned from time to time

What You Should Have

Strong belief in data-driven decision making, and possess experience managing large sets of data

Proven experience, leading teams of people (especially field teams) to accomplish an objective

Collaborative leader with strong relationship-building skills

Relentless focus on achievement for yourself and others

Bias towards action

Flexible and loves to work in a dynamic environment

Strong communication skills

Degree in Education or School management experience are added advantages but not required

You’re also

A detailed doer – You have a track record of getting things done, with at least 10 years of post-graduate school experience. You’re organised and responsive. You take ownership of every idea you touch and execute it to a fine level of detail, setting targets, engaging others, and doing whatever it takes to get the job done. You can multitask dozens of such projects at once and never lose sight of the details. Likely, you have some experience in a start-up or other rapid-growth company.

Self-driven - You are able to work independently, without prompting or push, driven by a sense of urgency and mindfulness around program goals in respect of pupil enrolment, bill clearance and schools financial health.

A networking mastermind – You excel at meeting new people and turning them into advocates. You communicate in a clear, conscientious, and effective way in both written documents and oral speech. You can influence strangers in the course of a single conversation. Allies and colleagues will go to bat for your ideas. You have an existing network in Nigeria from prior experience in the country, preferably in the regulatory, education, or business sectors.

A creative problem-solver – Growing any business from scratch comes with massive and constant challenges. On top of that, Bridge works in volatile, low-resource communities and runs on fees averaging just $6 a month per pupil. You need to be flexible and ready to get everything done effectively, quickly, and affordably with the materials at hand. Every dollar you spend is a dollar our customers, who live on less than $2 a day, will have to pay for.

A customer advocate – Our customers – these families living on less than $2 a day per person – never leave your mind. You know them, get them, have shared a meal with them (or would be happy to in the future). You would never shrink back from shaking a parent’s hand or picking up a crying child, no matter what the person was wearing or looked like. Every decision you make considers their customer benefit, experience, and value.

A life-long learner – You believe you can always do better. You welcome constructive criticism and provide it freely to others. You know you only get better tomorrow when others point out where you’ve missed things or failed today.

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