Learning & Teaching Manager

Birmingham Business School is the largest School at the University and plays a pivotal role in delivering the University’s strategies for internationalisation, student experience and teaching excellence.Managing the support for more than 40 postgraduate programmes, over 2000 postgraduate students, and leading a team of 20 professional services staff, the Learning and Teaching Manager is critical to ensuring the School delivers effective and efficient administrative and professional support for postgraduate students and programmes in the Business School. Working closely with the Director of PG Studies and the other related academic and professional services colleagues, you will contribute to the development and delivery of the School’s education and student enhancement strategies and related policies, processes and plans ensuring continuous improvement and compliance.

Main Duties:

• Lead, motivate and manage a team of learning and teaching professional services staff, through intermediate managers as appropriate, to deliver effective, efficient and consistent administrative support for identified programmes (from student recruitment and admissions, induction through to timetabling, examinations, and to graduation and alumni engagement).
• Working with the appropriate academic lead, develop and oversee the delivery of the education and student enhancement strategies and related policies, processes, operational plans and budget; ensuring that learning and teaching related resources are aligned with priorities, appropriate KPIs and targets (specifically those relating to student intake, continuation, employability, and student experience) are included and that there are mechanisms in places for monitoring and reporting on their delivery, sharing and learning from best practice, and that the strategy is periodically reviewed and remains up-to-date and relevant.
• Oversee the development and effective implementation of action plans arising from student feedback mechanism e.g. student surveys, module/programme review, staff student liaison committees, student reps etc., ensuring that Learning and Teaching staff are involved as appropriate to support the continuous enhancement of the student experience.
• Working with the appropriate academic leads, manage the periodic review of programme portfolio, individual programmes and modules identifying areas of best practice, improvements, expansion and streamlining, to include for example; competitor and market analysis, student feedback, and annual programme review etc.
• Manage and oversee learning and teaching related processes and communications to ensure compliance with University procedures for areas such as: Tier IV; GDPR; safeguarding; accreditation, quality assurance and curriculum development; examinations, assessment and feedback; partnerships, placements, and student mobility etc.
• Supporting formal investigation in to student complaints and misconduct as appropriate and developing actions plans in response to informal student complaints relating to learning and teaching related activity.
• Manage and oversee the provision of welfare, student support, and engagement services ensuring they are effective, efficient, robust, and are continuously reviewed and enhanced in order to consistently meet student expectations.
• Manage the administration of temporary teaching contracts.
• Where required, support the effective marketing of learning and teaching programmes.
• Attend and act as secretary for learning and teaching related committees and boards as appropriate and represent the School/College on committees, boards and projects relating to learning and teaching, and take a lead on driving change in related policies, systems and processes.

Person Specification

Essential:

• Educated to Degree level or equivalent relevant experience in a similar role.
• Considerable experience of learning and teaching administration and/or supporting students in higher education
• An understanding of undergraduate, postgraduate and Distance Learning education and the student lifecycle and specifically, issues affecting higher education (nationally and internationally) and the importance of the student experience and the importance of student feedback systems.
• Experience of managing staff across a range of activities, an appreciation of different leadership styles and the ability to apply them appropriately.
• Excellent written and oral communication skills
• Excellent interpersonal skills and a proven ability to work with a range of stakeholders including students, academics and senior managers, across the institution and a high degree of personal accountability with the ability to influence, motivate and win support and resolve conflict.
• Proactive, highly motivated and well organised, with the ability to work on own initiative, with minimal supervision, and to manage and prioritise a range of varied and complex tasks, completing them to the required deadlines
• Willing to do things differently with a flexible, creative and proactive approach to problem solving and has the experience of delivering projects and initiatives with measurable outcomes and deliverables
• Attention to detail and the ability to analyse data to formulate clear proposals which can inform the development of action plans, policies and strategies.
• Effective team working skills
• A track record of delivering an excellent customer experience
• Excellent IT skills and an aptitude for learning new packages to support analysis, presentation and communication of information (including VLEs, social media and other digital communications)
• Willingness to work flexibly, occasionallyoften outside of normal working hours
• Commitment to continuing professional development and training

Desirable:

• Change and project management experience
• Budget management experience
• An understanding of relevant external accreditation organisations