Brighton College is seeking to appoint a Boarding Matron

Reporting to: Director of Boarding

Main purpose of the role: As Boarding Matron, you will work alongside the Housemaster / Housemistress to provide the pastoral care and supervision necessary for the welfare and safety of pupils.

General Duties and Responsibilities:

• Being the first point of contact with parents regarding any daily domestic issues affecting the House, establishing strong, trusting relationships over time.
• Managing the day-to-day routines of the House.
• In addition to organising and undertaking domestic duties, the House Matron will have a pastoral input as a ‘parent figure’ in the house, and will therefore be an important member of the House team.
• Helping to maintain discipline with College and House rules and guidelines.
• Liaising with parents, the Health Centre and Catering about medical and dietary needs.
• Dealing with issues at the start of the day, e.g. pupils late out of bed due to illness.
• Checking registration data and assisting with follow-up.
• Visiting pupils’ rooms regularly to check they are tidy and orderly, helping them develop strategies if they find this difficult.
• Being a presence in the House when academic staff are teaching and acting as the first point of contact for parents.
• Attending a weekly meeting with the Director of Boarding/Logistics Manager to share good practice, discuss the week before and plan for the week ahead.
• Managing the domestic support in House and liaising with the Catering, Cleaning, Maintenance and Grounds Departments as required.
• Making sure the pupils are regularly putting their dirty clothes in the laundry.
• Liaising with laundry staff to ensure that all bed linen and clothing is laundered and returned to houses regularly and promptly.
• Overseeing the bed change on a fortnightly basis.
• Sewing for the pupils.
• Making sure the House and rooms are clean and tidy for visiting parents and VIP’s and touring prospective pupils and parents as requested by Admissions.
• Report any maintenance issues that have arisen.
• Taking students to medical, dental and other health associated appointments, to also include undertaking first aid response in first instance, training will be provided for this.
• Provide administrative support to the Housemaster/Housemistress as appropriate.
• Distributing post to the pupils.
• Collating all the information for the matches on Saturday and liaising with catering regarding any special meal requirements.
• Collating Saturday activity sign ups and information.
• Collating all the information from parents/guardians regarding weekend, exeat and holiday arrangements.
• Helping the pupils to organise and shop for House events such as the ‘At Home’, ‘Christmas Dinner’ etc.
• Keeping a key/code register for the individual room safes and ensure they are returned.
• Managing House expenses.
• Maintaining accurate labels for pupil room plates, laundry cupboards and pigeonholes.
• Liaising with Catering for boarding snacks and food rations to houses.
• Helping with the House lettings by checking rooms, reporting damage, and ensuring that the rooms are then ready for boarders to return.
• Being present on Open Days.
• Any other general duties as reasonably required.

Person Specification:

The successful candidate will have experience in the following areas:

• Genuine interest in working in a school environment.
• Experience in similar roles would be desirable.
• Warm and helpful manner.
• Highly organised.
• Good IT skills.
• Self-motivation with a can-do, positive attitude.
• Ability to talk to pupils, parents and staff at all levels.

Desirable

• First aid trained (if not trained the successful candidate will be given full training).

Hours of Work:

40 hours per week, working four days between Monday and Friday, 8:00am to 5:00pm, with a 60-minute lunch break, and Saturdays, 9:00am to 5:30pm, with a 30-minute lunch break. This is a term-time plus two weeks position (35 weeks total).

Remuneration:

The salary for this role will be £29,512 per annum.

Holidays:

Holiday entitlement is included in the salary for this role. All holiday is to be taken outside of the working weeks.

Benefits:

• Complimentary lunch is provided.
• Free tickets to the College’s music, dance and drama performances.
• Job specific Learning and Development programme available to all employees.
• Life Cover is provided whilst working at Brighton College after successfully passing probation period.
• Contributory pension scheme with matching contributions from the employer up to 9%, which all eligible employees will be automatically enrolled into within three months of commencement of employment.
• Employee benefit and discount platform.

Wellbeing:

• Subsidised gym membership for the School of Science and Sport is available, which includes access to yoga and Pilates classes, meditation sessions and use of the gym and swimming pool.
• Personalised health and wellbeing consultations.
• Generous sickness policy.
• Comprehensive wellbeing package.
• Access to books and magazines from the College Library.

Safeguarding and Equal Opportunities:

Brighton College is committed to safeguarding and promoting the welfare of children and young people and expects all staff and volunteers to share this commitment. Any offer of employment will be subject to successfully completing pre-employment checks, including an enhanced DBS disclosure, the receipt of satisfactory references, the College’s pre-employment medical questionnaire, relevant original ID documentation and examination certificates. The post is exempt from the Rehabilitation of Offenders Act 1974 and the School is therefore permitted to ask job applicants to declare all convictions and cautions (including those which are "spent" unless they are "protected" under the DBS filtering rules) in order to assess their suitability to work with children. The College is committed to ensuring that the recruitment and selection of staff is conducted in a manner that is systematic, efficient and effective and promotes equality of opportunity. Our full equal opportunities policy is available on the ‘Careers’ page of our website.