Safeguarding and Families Officer
The Swan School, Oxford, OX2 7WP7 days remaining to apply
Start date details
September 2025
Closing date
19 May 2025 at 8am
Date listed
6 May 2025
Job details
Job role
- Pastoral, health and welfare
Visa sponsorship
- Visas cannot be sponsored
Working pattern
- Full time
Contract type
- Permanent
Full-time equivalent salary
- £29,961.00 - £32,438.00 Annually (Actual) Grade 9 (40 weeks per year) 37 hours a week
Safeguarding and Families Officer job summary
Safeguarding and Families Officer
About the role
This is a rare and exciting opportunity to be part of shaping an exceptional comprehensive school in the early stages of its journey. As a Safeguarding and Families Officer, you will play a crucial role in ensuring that students at The Swan School are safe, happy, and able to achieve more than they ever believed possible. Specifically, you will help to embed a strong safeguarding culture within the school, address safeguarding concerns, and work closely with students, families, and external agencies to create the conditions where all young people at our school can be safe, happy, and successful.
As the Safeguarding and Families Officer at The Swan, you will work closely with colleagues in the wider school, including pastoral teams, attendance, and inclusion. You will benefit from being part of collaborative networks across the River Learning Trust, through which professional development, support, and supervision are offered. You will be trained as a Designated Safeguarding Lead (DSL) and there will be significant other opportunities for further training/development as part of your role.
This is ideally a full time role but flexible working may be considered for the right candidate
What skills/experiences are required?
The successful candidate will share our ambitions for our students and be passionate about the role that schools can play in breaking down barriers to help students to achieve more than they ever believed possible. You will have a strong interest in, and have a good understanding of, safeguarding and have experience working with young people and families in a pastoral or safeguarding role. Experience working with vulnerable students in a secondary school setting is desirable, but not essential. Due to the nature of safeguarding, a willingness to be flexible with time in order to be available to support crisis situations is essential; sometimes these may fall outside of regular working patterns.
This role will require good organisation and communication skills as you will be working with a range of different groups of people - students, parents, staff, and external agencies.
About the school
The Swan School, part of the River Learning Trust, is Oxford’s first new secondary school for over 50 years, and opened in September 2019. When full, we will have approximately 1,200 students on roll, of whom around 300 will be in the Sixth Form. Our students are drawn from a local catchment area and the school is at the heart of the community.
Learning from the most successful approaches at the best schools, The Swan School provides a uniquely challenging and structured experience in a caring and disciplined environment. The ethos is academic; we regard an excellent academic education as the entitlement of all young people, no matter what their background or previous experiences of learning. Students are inspired and nurtured, acquiring the knowledge and skills to think critically and creatively. They will learn to be confident, resilient and ambitious, and will have high expectations in terms of their own achievements and their contribution to wider society.
Student outcomes at The Swan School are exceptional - our first cohort of GCSE students achieved a Progress 8 score of +0.55, placing The Swan in the highest category of schools across the country. In 2023, the school was graded by OFSTED as outstanding for Behaviour and Attitudes, Personal Development, Leadership and Management, and Sixth Form.
The Swan School is part of the River Learning Trust, which facilitates collaboration, professional development, and opportunities across a wide range of other highly successful schools.
How to apply
If you have any questions or would like to speak to someone about this post, please contact us via headteacher@theswanschool.org.uk or on 01865 416070. You are advised to visit theswanschool.org.uk/work-at-the-swan/ to find out more about working at The Swan. We would be delighted to arrange an opportunity to visit the school and or speak to existing members of staff.
Applications for this post should be made through the My New Term recruitment portal. Please contact us if you have any queries regarding the application process.
The deadline for applications is Monday 19th May 2025 at 8am, with interviews likely to be held later the same week. Please note that applications will be considered as they are submitted and the school reserves the right to withdraw the advert early if a suitable candidate is found.
This is ideally a full-time role but part-time or flexible working may be considered for the right candidate.
About the River Learning Trust
Education has the power to change lives, communities and society for the better. At RLT we believe that we can achieve more for our pupils, trainees, staff and communities by working together rather than alone. Schools in RLT are united by a common belief in the benefits of working together, and by our commitment to shared principles.
OUR VISION is for our schools and SCITT to improve rapidly, continuously and sustainably: to be better faster together.
OUR ‘WHY?’ is that children and young people ‘only get one go’ in school and therefore as part of RLT we aim to ensure the best possible ‘go’ for our pupils.
OUR ‘HOW?’ is through the highest support and challenge for our schools and each other, underpinned by our principles.
Our employees benefit from a wide variety of support including extensive continuing professional learning and development opportunities, wellbeing and staff networks and access to Defined Benefit Pension Schemes (TPS and LGPS) for all staff. For more information on what it is like to work for the Trust, and the benefits you could access, please see our “Working in RLT” guide.
Safeguarding
The River Learning Trust and The Swan School are committed to safeguarding and promoting the welfare of all children and preventing extremism. All staff must ensure that the highest priority is given to following the guidance and regulations to safeguard children and young people. The successful candidate will be subject to an enhanced DBS check. Employment will also be conditional on the receipt of at least two acceptable references (one from current/latest employer) and evidence of the formal qualifications required for the role. This role includes regulated activity relevant to children. It is an offence to apply for certain roles within schools if you are barred from engaging in regulated activity relevant to children. You should contact the school if you are unsure if this role includes regulated activity relevant to children.
- For all RLT Safer Recruitment Documentation candidates should click on the following link
- The Swan School's Safeguarding and Child Protection Policy can be found here
Commitment to safeguarding
Our organisation is committed to safeguarding and promoting the welfare of children, young people and vulnerable adults. We expect all staff, volunteers and trustees to share this commitment.
Our recruitment process follows the keeping children safe in education guidance.
Offers of employment may be subject to the following checks (where relevant):
childcare disqualification
Disclosure and Barring Service (DBS)
medical
online and social media
prohibition from teaching
right to work
satisfactory references
suitability to work with children
You must tell us about any unspent conviction, cautions, reprimands or warnings under the Rehabilitation of Offenders Act 1974 (Exceptions) Order 1975.
Applying for the job
This school accepts applications through their own website, where you may also find more information about this job.
CVs are not accepted.
About The Swan School
- School type
- Free School, ages 11 to 18
- Education phase
- Secondary
- School size
- 862 pupils enrolled
- Age range
- 11 to 18
- Ofsted report
- View Ofsted report
- School website
- The Swan School website
School location
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