Job Vacancies at Spark Schools

Purpose of Role:

The School Operations Manager drives student achievement in the SPARK Schools network by ensuring that their school operates smoothly, efficiently, and to a consistent standard of excellence.

The School Operations Manager is integral to the SPARK Schools culture and our commitment to rigorous, engaging learning experiences for our scholars.

Requirements

Responsibilities:

• Implement school­ wide systems and procedures (for example, arrivals, dismissals, cover timetables, study hall timetables, and examination administration) to facilitate student achievement and align with SPARK Schools network -wide best practice.

• Support scholar achievement by setting clear and high expectations for excellent facilitation and monitoring in all innovation hubs.

• Maintain a regular schedule of observations in all the innovation hubs and observation review meetings with blended learning facilitators to ensure that they can successfully plan online courses, execute monitoring and tracking, and implement SPARK Schools’ culture and behaviour management techniques.

• Facilitate professional development for operational staff & Blended Learning Facilitators on the implementation of school­wide systems, as well as personal and professional competencies. This includes designing and facilitating biweekly group sessions and individual one-on-one coaching sessions, as well as arranging for individual professional growth opportunities.

• Oversee the Office Manager’s administration of student information systems and student records.

• Ensure study hall attendance and late pick up is tracked accurately and submitted to billing on time.

• Ensure effective study material/resources are sourced and procured for high school scholars, in coordination with the Learning Model team.

• Implement a rigorous study hall product with measurable academic outcomes using data-driven strategies.

• Organise and manage the high school clubs as per the implementation guide.

• Manage the clubs and XC project budget, coordinating delivery of materials and resources in full and on time.

• Manage examination routines & procedures as outlined in the implementation guides and by DBE regulations.

• Organise and maintain relationships with extramural vendors.

• Line manage school site operational staff (office manager, facilities and maintenance staff, supervisors, and security guard) & Blended Learning Facilitators, including regular performance reviews.

• Manage all school inventory, including fixed assets (technology and furniture), stationery, cleaning supplies, and other resources.

• Conduct weekly asset checks of all Chromebooks for scholars and staff radios.

  • Manage roaming Chromebook set and maintain a register, schedule and daily monitoring of roaming Chromebooks.

  • Conduct monthly stock take and update asset counts.

• Oversee the maintenance of the school facility, including coordinating efforts amongst facilities and maintenance staff, SPARK Schools Support staff, outside vendors and suppliers, and security services.

• Maintain a daily schedule of facilities and grounds walk-arounds and observations, including lunch, break and study hall observations.

• Coordinate with the Procurement team at SPARK Support for fixed assets and consumables.

• Manage the site specific and study hall budgets.

• Participate in the selection of new school-based staff.

• Onboard new personnel.

• Understand and enforce network-wide policies and compliance requirements, including related Umalusi regulations.

• Lead the site-specific crisis management team.

• Understand and implement SPARK Schools crisis management strategy.

• Attend to sick or injured children and liaise with parents/guardians about their children.

• Attend to sick or injured staff and liaise with emergency contacts.

• Attend coaching 1:1s with the school principal and regular team meetings with the principal and assistant principal(s).

• Participate actively in staff development opportunities as a member of the SPARK Schools team.

• Conduct self in a professional manner at all SPARK Schools events and to all stakeholders.

Qualifications:

The ideal candidate will possess the following qualifications and criteria:

• Experience

  • Required: At least 1-3 years of classroom instruction

  • Preferred: operational management/leadership in a high school context

 

• Preferred Qualifications

  • English language fluency

  • Completed B.Ed or PGCE degree (SP & FET)

  • SACE registration

  • Level 1 and 2 first aid certificates

  • Clear criminal record

Qualities:

• Grit: Persistence through challenges.

• Excellence: A track record of high expectations personally and professionally.

• Mission and Vision Alignment: Understanding of and passion for the SPARK Schools mission to provide excellent education at an affordable cost.

• Self­ Reflection: Finding the capacity to bring your best self to challenges and opportunities.

Values: Service, Persistence, Achievement, Responsibility, Kindness

Benefits

SPARK offers:

• fair market linked remuneration

• performance-based annual bonuses and increases

• above average/good annual leave

• life, disability and funeral cover

• employee wellness support

• educational support & study leave

• individualised professional development, support and mentorship

• employee discount on school fees

• opportunities for career growth

Compensation: R30,000.00 p/m ctc

Position Type: Full Time

Location: SPARK Randburg High School, Johannesburg

SPARK Schools may expire the posting of this advertisement at their own discretion.

Kindly note that should you have not heard from us within two weeks of the closing date please consider your application unsuccessful.

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Description

About SPARK Schools

SPARK Schools is a network of independent schools that provides affordable, globally competitive education through Africa’s first blended learning model. This innovative model elevates student achievement and provides the tools teachers need to serve their students effectively.

This blended learning model, which combines classroom teaching and online instruction, allows teachers to anticipate student needs and equips schools to provide personalized education at an affordable cost. SPARK Schools is pioneering this transformative education model to ensure the accessibility of university and careers for all.

SPARK Schools has a culture of collaboration, because getting South Africa to lead global education takes a team effort. We are innovators who strive for excellence through persistence and a sense of urgency to achieve SPARK Schools’ vision, mission and social transformational objectives. Our work environment is vibrant/cheerful, fast-paced/dynamic, engaging/stimulating, tech-enabled and data driven.

SPARK Schools is a high growth, mission and values-driven, entrepreneurial organisation, operating 17 primary schools and 1 high school and serving over 13 500 families. We are looking for dynamic people to join our team.

 

Reports To: Head of Strategy & Growth

Requirements

Responsibilities:

• Ensure solutions to new and challenging data problems in the SPARK Schools ecosystem, including but not limited to establishing a single source of truth, master and reference data management, defining the data landscape and organisational data processes.

• Well versed in data governance and management. Ability to guide executives based on industry best practices.

• Work with the executives and systems team to ensure compliance in terms of PoPIA and GDPR.

• Act as an internal consultant to the Executive (Technology) to ensure information security adherence and compliance.

• Ensure SPARK Schools has all relevant policies with respect to Information security, Data governance, GDPR and PoPIA.

• Develop and implement a data strategy.

• Serve as an analytics domain expert: help the business intelligence team scope and and prioritize projects, identify required infrastructure, maintain existing infrastructure

• Be a thought partner to other departments and drive data-driven decision-making across SPARK Schools

• Build reports and dashboards that empower stakeholders to self-service data consumption, enabling them to access data and insights as needed

• Deeply understand users within the SPARK ecosystem and their actions (end to end) and champion features to enhance user experience - reducing pain points for all stakeholders

• Help develop data-driven products and services, such as client-facing analytics insights and personalized experiences

• Be able to simplify and communicate complex topics to non-technical audiences

• Elevate the entire business (Particularly Product Design, Sales, Marketing, Systems, Accounts and Customer Service teams) by analyzing and leveraging data to make recommendations and improvements

• Work with other analysts and data scientists to support business intelligence work from SQL pipelines and Power BI

• Ad-hoc data analysis.

• Mentor and support other analysts

Qualifications and Criteria:

The ideal candidate will possess the following qualifications and criteria:

• Completed relevant bachelor’s degree in mathematics, engineering, computer science or another relevant field

• Masters degree preferable

• 5 to 7 years of experience as a Business Intelligence Specialist/analyst - 3 of which must be as a manager or senior role

• Expert knowledge of SQL

• Expert level usage of BI tools (Power BI & Excel/Google Sheets)

• Analytics experience across multiple company domains such as Product, Sales, Marketing, Customer Service, and Finance

• Experience with web analytics and optimization tools (Mixpanel, Google Analytics, etc.)

• Experience in designing and setting up experiments to analyze the impact of new products and features a plus (hypothesis testing, multivariate analysis, or Bayesian)

• Experience working with developers

• Experience with databases

• Familiarity with version-control systems

• Strong interpersonal and communication skills are required

• Excellent command of the English language, both written and spoken

• Experience with a BI transformation tool is a plus

Competencies:

• SQL Server

• T-SQL

• SSIS

• SSAS

• SSRS

• Azure

• Power BI

Qualities:

• Grit: Persistence through challenges.

• Excellence: A track record of high expectations personally and professionally.

• Mission and Vision Alignment: Understanding of and passion for the SPARK Schools mission to provide excellent education at an affordable cost.

• Self­ Reflection: Finding the capacity to bring your best self to challenges and opportunities.

Values: Service, Persistence, Achievement, Responsibility, Kindness

Benefits

SPARK offers:

• fair market linked remuneration

• performance-based annual bonuses and increases

• above average/good annual leave

• life, disability and funeral cover

• employee wellness support

• educational support & study leave

• individualised professional development, support and mentorship

• employee discount on school fees

• opportunities for career growth