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Do you want to have the freedom to make a real difference to the lives of young people at school?

Do you want to be part of a movement advocating for a more inclusive education system?

Do you want the opportunity to receive a high-quality training package focussed on gaining the skills to support the most ‘at risk’ young people?

Title: School Programmes Trainee Practitioner
Reports to: School Project Manager
Start date: Late August 2023
Location: Birmingham
Hours: Full Time
Salary: £21,000 - £24,000 (experience depending)
Deadline: Monday 24th April 2023

We are looking for a passionate individual who wants to learn to deliver our long term, intensive wrap-around intervention in schools across West Midlands. The FBB model puts young people’s passions and strengths at the heart of their development to help them thrive in secondary school. We need someone who is deeply committed to changing the life chances of young people and has the energy, empathy and adaptability to deliver the support young people deserve to thrive in school and beyond.

You will be highly motivated, with high standards for yourself and others. We’re seeking someone caring, ambitious and keen to learn who loves working with young people. You will have a strong moral compass and a proven commitment to really make a difference to young people’s lives.

Before you skim the job description, please remember you don’t have to tick all the boxes for the role to apply. We all experience a bit of imposter syndrome, including the staff here at Football Beyond Borders. If this role pulls you and you believe you could make a difference then apply anyway or reach out to us to discuss more!

Who are we?

FBB is one of the leading educational charities and youth brands in the UK. Established in 2014, we have undergone impressive growth in the past couple of years and are now at an exciting stage of our journey. We currently work with 2000 students across 130 Secondary School programmes in Greater Manchester, Birmingham, Liverpool, Lancashire, Yorkshire, London, Kent and Essex. Alongside this, we have built strong partnerships with a host of brands such as Nike. In the next stage of our journey FBB aims to become the leading specialist charity for disengaged young people and the best place to work with young people in the UK.

Young people are at the heart of everything we do. From decisions made at Senior Leadership and our Board, to how we design activations with partners to ensure young people get the most out of them. We’re working in a system that has been designed to limit the potential of many young people, and we know that to make real change, we need to work hard and differently. FBB can be fast-paced and intensive at times, but our focus on working culture and support is prioritised to ensure staff are in a position to ‘Go Beyond’ for young people.

We place relationships at the heart of what we do. That’s not only about our work with young people, but equally important with our colleagues. We strive to do things differently at FBB. We don’t believe that work should be the thing you dread on a Sunday evening. If you’re keen to throw yourself into new environments and develop meaningful relationships with people from all walks of life, then FBB is the workplace for you.

We’re also BIG on learning. This means that we dedicate a full day of everyone’s week to learning and development, during this day practitioners take part in our innovative training programme which includes chances to receive training from external experts, connect with colleagues and reflect. As a young and ambitious team, we are constantly finding the next opportunities to develop. We like to throw our hat in the ring for things we’ve never tried before. FBB is a place where you can be introduced to multiple different aspects of work: our focus on cross-team collaboration means you'll have the opportunity to work on projects in Brand, Comms, Operations, Culture and Programmes. We also don’t mind the conventional stuff: there’s an FBB reading list, opportunities for reflection and external training budgets too!

FBB is recognised in the sector as innovative and thought-leading. We are always on the hunt for talented and ambitious people to join the team and contribute to our vision of becoming a leader in supporting young people to thrive and become the best versions of themselves.

Role Overview

The School Programmes Trainee will support the delivery of the FBB Schools Programme in partner Secondary Schools across West Midlands. This will involve supporting programmes across up to 5 schools. This person will be based in schools helping to deliver FBB sessions and supporting FBB participants outside of sessions with additional pastoral support including 1:1s and parental engagement. This person will receive training and support in order to build the skills and experience required to become a full time School Programmes Lead.

Main duties:

Your Team

The beauty of this role is that you will be working closely with young people on a day to day basis as well as staff across various FBB partner schools.

Your key relationships within FBB will be with:

• School Programmes Practitioners. On each of your programmes you will be supporting one of our School Programmes Practitioners.
• School Programme Managers. These people are the leaders of the team with a wealth of experience within schools who will support your development.

Your Development

In 2022/23 academic year we launched a unique frontline development programme which aims to give the best possible training for our practitioners. Every Wednesday practitioners will not be in schools, instead this day is reserved for training. Depending on a practitioner's experience and previous qualifications they will receive formal training in counselling, supporting young people with SEN, Mental Health, group facilitation, football coaching and much more. There will be the opportunity for our practitioners to identify a specialist area that they wish to train in so they can lead the organisation in this area. This is a brilliant opportunity to build your skills and expertise in supporting young people. FBB is an ambitious charity with plans for continued growth over the coming years and with that comes opportunities to grow with the organisation and take on more responsibility.

What development could look like…

Year 1

Title: Trainee

Salary: £21,000

Role: Support with the FBB programme both within sessions and additional interventions outside of the session.

Training: Entry level training in counselling SEN, Mental Health, Group facilitation, football coaching and more.

Year 2

Title: Advanced Trainee

Salary: £23,000

Role: Support a more senior member of staff on their project. During this year they will be given opportunities to develop some of the responsibilities of a Lead Practitioner such as being involved in meetings with senior school staff and leading sessions.

Training: Training focuses on preparing practitioners to be Leads. They will receive further therapeutic training, some leadership training and more advanced training in SEN, teaching & learning, childhood trauma.

Year 3

Title: Lead

Salary: £27,000

Role: At this point the practitioner becomes a ‘Lead’ which means they hold responsibility for the programme. They will have responsibility for the relationship with the school, running therapeutic mentoring for those students with higher needs and managing the more junior practitioners

Training: Base level training in counselling SEN, Mental Health, Group facilitation, football coaching and more.

Year 4

Title: Advanced Lead

Salary: £29,000

Role: In year 2 of being a Lead practitioner responsibility for supporting the development of a trainee and managing school relationships will be part of the responsibilities. They will also begin to contribute to FBB in their area of specialism (impact team, policy, delivery training).

Training: Staff will get the opportunity to choose a specialism to pursue at this point. This could be in teaching and learning, counselling or youth work.

Year 5

Title: Specialist Lead

Salary: £31,000

Role: At this point as a ‘specialist’ in their chosen field they will take on some FBB wide responsibility for that area.

Training: During this year practitioners are encouraged to scale their impact by taken their specialism and contributing to an area of FBB from curriculum design to training to brand to fundraising.

Your Experience

Important Things About You....

• You will be committed to supporting the most at risk young people in our schools and willing to go beyond for them
• You will be someone who loves working in a team
• You will have excellent interpersonal skills, empathy and emotional intelligence
• You enjoy working in fast paced environments and have a hunger to learn
• You have an understanding of the challenges and different learning needs of
  adolescents
• You will be able to build strong relationships with young people built on their assets and passions
• You can develop strong working relationships with colleagues and teachers within schools
• You will be able to problem solve independently and adapt to new situations
• You will relish taking on feedback and learning from mistakes

And also consider applying if any of the following apply to you...

• You have worked in schools supporting young people
• Have qualifications in counselling/mental health support for young people
  
• Have qualifications in counselling/mental health support for young people
• You have qualifications in youth work
• Have always felt working with young people was your calling but come from another professional background

Recruitment Process

Football Beyond Borders aims to be representative of the community we are working with. We recognise that having the strongest workforce possible means hiring and developing the best people across all races, ethnicities, religions, age groups, sexual orientations, gender identities and abilities.

We’re not just committed to being an equal opportunity employer, we actively celebrate diversity in all its forms. Let us know if we can do anything to make the application or interview process more accessible. If you are invited to interview, we will at that point ask you for any accessibility requirements or preferences.

FBB is committed to adopting a safe recruitment process and follows the NSPCC safer
recruitment procedures that have safeguarding at their heart. The appointment will undergo an enhanced DBS check.

Shortlisting

When shortlisting, we will be looking for evidence that you have the knowledge, experience and skills to do the job as detailed in the person specification and job description. These provide the criteria against which your application will be assessed.

You must fill in the application form and are requested NOT to submit a curriculum vitae.

Personal Details

You are not required to state your date of birth; however, you are asked to state your national insurance number so that if we have two candidates with the same name, this number is a unique reference; it also acts as a means of identification of eligibility to work as required under the Asylum Act.

References

Please give the name of two referees, one of whom should be your present or most recent employer. If you have worked in a school (or similar) within the past 3 years this must be one of the references.

Please note that on the application form, we do request the facility to contact any of your previous employers to seek a reference. References will not normally be taken up unless a provisional offer has been made. Any offer of employment will be subject to receipt of satisfactory references.

Employment History

You are required to account for your entire employment history since leaving full time education. Any gaps must be accounted for to comply with Safer Recruitment. Please provide details in the application form.

Disclosure And Barring Service (DBS) Check

You will be required to undertake an enhanced DBS check to work at FBB; you will be notified if this is the case. Alternatively, if you are registered with the DBS Update Service, you will need to provide your reference number and permission to undertake a search. If required, any offer of employment will be subject to receipt of satisfactory DBS check.

Commitments

If you have any commitments with your present employer or which would affect your employment with Football Beyond Borders, e.g. training, relocation, etc., please raise this at the interview.

Medical Report

You will be required to complete a confidential medical questionnaire prior to an offer of employment being confirmed.

Probationary Period/Trial

If successful, your employment will be subject to a six month trial period, commencing on your starting date, at the end of which you will be confirmed into the post subject to satisfactory conduct and work performance.

Reasonable Adjustments

Please provide details in the application form if you consider you need additional support from Stepping Stone in order to fulfil the duties of the post or indeed in order to attend interview.

Additional Information

Football Beyond Borders will normally acknowledge receipt of applications. We will normally publish the date of the interview in the advertisement and although we will always endeavour to notify unsuccessful candidates individually, if you have not had any notification prior to the interview date you must assume you were unsuccessful.

A firm written offer will be made to successful candidates after receiving satisfactory medical assessment, vetting checks, and references. It is advisable that candidates wait until the receipt of a firm written offer rather than an offer subject to receipt of references, before handing in their notice at their present employment.

Equal Opportunities

To ensure that our recruitment advertisements are effective and our equal opportunities procedures are operating efficiently, we would be grateful if you could complete the monitoring form at the back of the application form. This form is detached from your application form on receipt and does not form part of the selection process.

Finally, if you are unclear about anything on these notes or in the application form, please do not hesitate to contact us.

Principles of the FBB Schools programme

Our FBB Schools programme exists to transform the behaviour for learning and attitude to learning of students who love football but are disengaged at school. Our work builds on the strengths and potential of our young people through putting their passion for football at the heart of their learning.

Our programme is built on the following four theoretical foundations:

Attachment Theory
Adolescent Neuroscience
Developmental Trauma
Humanistic Therapy

FBB works with young people for four years, through weekly interventions and holiday programmes delivered in partnership with secondary schools across London, the West Midlands and the North West. The programme is targeted at Key Stage 3 students who are disengaged at school and come from economically disadvantaged backgrounds. We know from the evidence that Key Stage 3 is the crucial time to work with disengaged boys and girls in order to prevent them from being excluded.

We believe real change can only be sustained through an embedded and holistic approach to our young people’s development. We work to become deeply embedded in the lives of our participants and in the communities we are based in. Our integrated approach is supported through intensive parental and teacher engagement achieved through parents’ evenings, teacher showcases and weekly text and phone updates.

Key aspects of the FBB Schools programme

There are four parts to our FBB Schools programme:

Classroom: Our football-themed curriculum aims to tap into young people’s passions to create transformative learning experiences and develop key social and emotional competencies. We deliver project based classroom learning sessions often with external partners such as Nike, Gillette and the FA, and these complete with a public showcase at the end of each project. We see this as a key part in young people developing a more positive attitude towards learning.

Pitch: We provide a constraints led, game-based football coaching curriculum. Our students learn to overcome challenges, learn from mistakes and support their teammates, improving their social and emotional competencies. We believe that the football pitch is a safe space where young people can experience, reflect on and learn from both positive and negative emotions.

Trips: We reward participants with visits and end of year tours built around exciting events involving inspiring people from the world of football and media. Our students broaden their horizons and develop positive habits

Interventions: Weekly one to one session for our most At Risk students to work through the traumatic experiences which may be contributing to their challenging behaviour, parental engagement and support for our young people in their wider school life.