Dean at Valenture Institute

The Role:

Dean of Social Sciences, Immediate Availability

The Academic Dean of a subject area is fully responsible for the quality of teaching and learning within their department. They recruit, develop and lead the teachers within their department, monitoring set Key Performance Indicators, developing pedagogical best practices for the subject areas that they oversee and developing their teaching staff to ensure that Valenture Institute’s offering remains innovative, fit for purpose and scalable as we seek to serve thousands of students across the globe. 

The incumbent should be a consummate professional, passionate about teaching and learning excellence and adaptable to a commercial setting. One of Valenture Institute’s values highlights that Profitability is Sustainability. We believe that we can do good and do well, and this ethos permeates everything that we do. We have a bold ambition to scale quality education through a simple formula: Quality X Profitability = Reach. It’s expressed simply, but this problem requires consistent critical thinking and reengineering of long-held beliefs. The Academic Deans are central to helping us extend our reach through quality education. 

This position reports directly into the Director of Teaching and Learning and forms part of the Faculty management team. The Dean of Social Sciences will oversee History, Geography and the Sustainability (SDG Labs) subject areas from Junior High, IGCSE through to A-levels.

Roles and responsibilities:

• Oversee the development of Learning Design Plans for each course on offer within the relevant department:
• By collaborating with allocated learning designer/s in analysis and Design phases of courses within allocated department
• By reviewing and signing off final Learning Design Plan created by the Learning Designer/s
• Create or moderate all summative assessments.
• Create the Gradebook design with support from the Learning Design team, determining the spread of formative and summative tasks and their relative weighting per term (as per assessment policy).
• Create and review live session plans.
• Review content created by Learning Designer/s.
• Sign off on final presentation of content on Canvas.
• Teach live lessons and breakout live lessons when required, and ensure facilitators are assigned to the teaching of live sessions as required.
• Be available to students during ‘office hours’ as required, and oversee this responsibility of teachers within your department. 
• Oversee student discussion forums as required, and oversee this responsibility of teachers within your department. 
• Mark student work as required, and oversee this responsibility of teachers within your department. 
• Moderate all formative assessments 
• Write comments for reports as required, and oversee this responsibility of teachers within your department. 
• Monitor the teaching of live sessions by facilitators, mentoring the teachers in your department on an ongoing basis. 
• Ensure uninterrupted facilitation of live sessions for all courses within your department (with reference to a live session contingency plan).
• Interview, train, mentor and monitor all teachers and facilitators in the department. (Appointment of teachers and facilitators is confirmed by the Director of Teaching and Learning).
• Conduct quality assurance monitoring of all teaching and learning programmes and assessments in the department.
• Develop department-specific policies and processes (eg: practicals for Sciences).
• Respond to feedback from our stakeholders to continue to improve and develop Valenture Institute's course offering.
• Fulfil all administrative duties allocated by the Director of Teaching and Learning.
• Participate in all faculty meetings.
• Attend weekly company meetings.
• Coordinate the running of subject team meetings
• Review, update and improve modules for the next intake

Requirements for appointment:

• At least an Honours degree but preferably a Masters degree in education or related subject field, and
• at least 10 years experience teaching at high school level, and
• a PGCE, BEd or other acceptable teaching qualification, and
• at least two years leadership experience, at head of department / subject level or above, in the education sector.
• Experience in teaching IGCSE, IAS and IA Level subjects.
• For this position, we would consider individuals who have mastered in History and would feel comfortable overseeing pedagogical approaches in the Social Sciences faculty.

Please apply with your current salary and expected remuneration indicated.

Realities of the role:

• Valenture Institute is a startup with big ambitions. Change is constant, and evolution is the name of the game. Ideally, you will thrive in an environment that values change as a daily occurrence rather than on an annual basis. 
• We hire smart people who are aligned to our culture. You will work with a team of hungry, smart operators. Collaboration is the name of the game, and we value effective team players above individual talent.
• We’re a new brand of schooling, and we don’t want to simply replicate what’s been done for centuries. Ideas about traditional schooling need to stand up because they’re better, not because they’ve been done that way forever. In this role, you will feel challenged to think differently and to break moulds of thinking and doing, and you’ll need to lead change masterfully for people who are used to doing the same. 
• The role of a teacher at Valenture Institute has been delineated into specialist roles. Our teaching staff work with Learning Designers to develop their curriculum, Learning Technologists to enable their teaching, and Mentors to coach and mentor students. It’s a role that requires a depth of collaboration that isn’t present in many schools. 
• Valenture is not your average school and we are unapologetic about the challenges inherent in scaling quality education.