Museum Learning Officer Aylesbury, England
Job description
Job Description
Job Title: Museum Learning Officer
Reports To: Head of Learning & Engagement
Salary : £23,500 pa (rising to £24,000 pa after completion of probationary period)
Start Date : April 2023
Contract Type : Full-time
Hours: Mon-Fri 9am - 5pm.
Some weekend/evening/bank holiday working may be required on occasion.
Based at : Discover Bucks Museum at 9 Church Street in Aylesbury
About us
Discover Bucks Museum in Aylesbury showcases the rich natural and cultural heritage of the county. It is the home to the Roald Dahl Children’s Gallery, where hands-on exhibits are inspired by the fantastic world of Roald Dahl. Our Discover Bucks displays explore the story of Bucks through collections of art, social history, archaeology, wildlife, and geology. 2022 was an exciting year for Discover Bucks Museum, as the main gallery spaces were redesigned and refurbished. The new exhibitions and interactive displays bring out objects in the collections that tell the story about Bucks people and landscapes from 200 million years to the present day. Our schools programme delivers sessions to up to 14,000 pupils each year. This is expected to expand, with new offers including a suite of school workshops based around the Discover Bucks Galleries.
Our Vision
We collect and share objects and stories reflecting the people, culture, and landscapes in Buckinghamshire. We encourage visitors to join us on journeys of discovery. We inspire our community, creating conversations and connections to the place where we live.
Our Values
- We are open and inclusive.
- We inspire deep emotion and moments of magic.
- We are curious and inquisitive about our collections and the world around us.
Role profile
The role
We are seeking a highly efficient and experienced Learning Officer to join our team based at Discover Bucks Museum in Aylesbury. In this role you will perform a variety of tasks to support the Head of Learning & Engagement in the smooth running of learning activities and events. You will be a key point of contact for schools hoping to book visits to us, maintaining good relationships with existing customers and assisting the development of new audiences. The role will have varying amounts of additional events and marketing input but will essentially focus on bookings, team supervisions and growth of our schools offer post-pandemic. The role includes a responsibility for maintaining customer feedback databases, budget, and resource databases, requiring solid organisation skills with high levels of accuracy and attention to detail. As the Learning Officer, you will support the development and delivery of learning programmes for families, schools, and other interest groups. You will act as supervisor to the Learning Team, consisting of a small team of casual workshop leaders and assistants. You will hold morning briefings, set tasks, and oversee the seamless delivery of schools offers and family activities. We hope that you will grow the team through volunteer development and supervision of work experience students or apprentices. You will have administrative responsibility for answering schools’ enquiries, being a point of contact for teachers and taking session bookings, striving for maximum capacity, actively encouraging school bookings.
The role is particularly varied and involves some schools marketing, learning activity creation, teaching and customer service. The Learning Team is busy and operates in a fast-paced environment and you will need to keep up with the demands of the role while gaining great satisfaction from successes. This role necessitates a Disclosure and Barring System check to safeguard the working with children and vulnerable adults.
Key Duties
- Take school bookings and room hire bookings by telephone and email, following set procedures and communicating bookings to appropriate staff.
- Coordinate a busy and intricate timetable of school bookings with the allocation of freelancers and zero hours casual workshop leaders to deliver each session and the inclusion of appropriate volunteer support.
- Stocktake and order materials for learning, and events.
- Maintain and update Learning and Engagement budget spreadsheets for purchases.
- Communicate with schools to facilitate successful and positive experiences and encourage new visits/engagement with the museum.
- Support Museum communication and promotion through e-letters and news to schools, staff and volunteers.
- Collect and collate monthly statistics related to pupil numbers and income and report to managers.
- Maintain a database of feedback from events, formal and informal learning experiences and summarise and analyse outcomes to report back to the Head of Learning.
- Administer the co-ordination of events, involving internal and external practitioners, including collating necessary paperwork such as risk assessments and contractor agreements.
- Research content, artists and suppliers for learning and events.
- Assist in the development of schools and learning programmes.
- Liaise with the Visitor Services team on room bookings, to organise personnel, furniture, related equipment, and resources required in the relevant Museum spaces.
- Supporting with marketing, such as content writing, social media posting and collation of marketing images.
- Support with documenting events at the museum.
- Contribute towards audience development research and seek out ways of further growing the offer to these audiences.
- Act as Deputy Safeguarding Officer under the Head of Learning.
Person Specification:
Essential-
- Previous experience of working with children, or young people and families in a learning capacity.
- Experience of supervising small teams.
- Working in a fast-paced environment and working under pressure to meet deadlines.
- Experience of communicating with and writing for a wide range of audiences.
- A sound understanding of the National Curriculum and other education frameworks.
- Have a good understanding of formal and informal learning in relation to culture and heritage.
- Have a good understanding of service-based sales, encouraging increased school bookings.
- Demonstrable understanding and experience of the key elements of excellent customer service.
- Have up-to-date knowledge of GDPR and other legal responsibilities e.g. safeguarding.
- Understanding and ability to demonstrate the importance of health & safety and security in keeping our staff and visitors safe.
- Have excellent organisation skills, with a desire to improve efficiency in procedures and ways of working.
- Have strong administrative skills with meticulous attention to detail, ensuring accuracy at all times.
- Have excellent written communication skills with experience in content writing (such as newsletters and learning resources).
- Have excellent customer service skills and use these when liaising with teachers, educators, and other service users.
- Be a highly skilled communicator, able to form relationships quickly and provide excellent customer service.
- Have excellent time management skills and role model these qualities to other staff.
- Have a talent for quick-thinking and problem-solving, able to adapt for changing circumstances.
- Have the ability to learn taught sessions quickly for covering teaching sessions during peak booking periods or instances of staff absence, with minimal training.
- Have good IT skills including experience of software packages for the creation of learning resources.
- Have an aptitude for use of MS software, especially Excel and Outlook, including calendars, and also social media applications.
- Ability to carry out / assist in set up and take down of events and schools’ activity.
- Enthusiasm for self-development & learning
- Show enthusiasm, positivity and a dedication to succeed, acting as an advocate for the museum to visitors and stakeholders.
- Have an attitude of reliability and honesty.
- Professional outlook and attitude to maintain the reputation of the organisation.
- Be flexible, adapting to day-to-day challenges with a ‘can-do’ approach.
- Have boundless energy and a willingness to assist with set up and take down of learning spaces and for events.
- Have a passion for teamwork and strong interpersonal skills.
- Have a willingness to assist with other duties in times of need to support the museum team, having the best interests of the organisation at heart.
- Be a team player, keen to collaborate, share ideas and support colleagues as needed.
- Have a dedication to championing equity and inclusion and be passionate about celebrating diversity.
Desirable-
- Supervision of casual staff and volunteers
- Experience of facilitating arts/heritage offers
- Experience of developing learning activities
- A formal teaching qualification
- Background in one of the following subjects: history; archaeology; earth/ natural sciences; arts
- Knowledge of various forms of monitoring and evaluation
- An understanding of children and young people safeguarding
- First Aid training
- Have creative flair, enjoying developing activities and crafts for different audiences.
- Have an aptitude for collating data.
- Creativity around new offers for development
- Passion for working in the heritage or arts & culture sector
How to apply:
Please send your CV and cover letter (no more than 3 sides of A4) outlining how you fit the job role with reference to the role descriptor and person specification
Application deadline: Midnight on Sunday 26 March 2023
Interview dates: Wednesday 29 and Thursday 30 March 2023
Job Type: Full-time
Salary: £23,500.00 per year
Schedule:
- Holidays
- Monday to Friday
- Weekend availability
Ability to commute/relocate:
- Aylesbury: reliably commute or plan to relocate before starting work (required)
Application question(s):
- Are you happy for us to perform an enhanced DBS check?
Experience:
- Experience with children: 3 years (preferred)
Licence/Certification:
- Safeguarding Certification (preferred)
Work Location: One location
Application deadline: 27/03/2023
