School Officer Manager - Huntingdon
Job description
Original text imported from Reed
School Officer Manager
Do you enjoy providing essential support to a busy team?
Are you highly organised and detail-oriented?
We have a fantastic temporary opportunity for you in Huntingdon!
Our client is seeking to appoint an enthusiastic, efficient and highly motivated School Officer Manager. This is an exciting role where you'll be working with a dynamic team that makes a real difference to people's lives and contributes to the community.
This is a full time position with 35 hours per week (8:00 am - 4.00 pm).
The role provides crucial administrative, resource, and business support to the Senior Leadership Team (SLT) and the School Assistant Business Manager. This position is central to the daily operations of the school, with a focus on business services such as Human Resources, Payroll, Admissions, and Attendance.
Key Responsibilities and Accountabilities
- Recruitment Support: You will provide administrative support for the recruitment process, including coordinating interview days and assisting with DBS checks, identity verification, qualification checks, and references.
- Payroll & Census: You will support payroll processing, including handling leaver processes and payroll notifications.
- Absence Management: You will be the primary point of contact for staff absences, monitoring and recording sickness and other leave requests.
- Admissions & Appeals: You will support the administration of admission appeals, ensuring all processes are transparent and compliant.
- General Support: You will provide general business and administrative support as needed by the Senior Leadership Team. This includes undertaking reception and telephone duties, managing post, and responding to emails.
- Data & Records: You will maintain and update school assessment data in the Arbor system and oversee the student attendance role.
- Additional Duties: You may be required to act as a First Aider or an examination invigilator.
If this sounds interesting to you then we can help with your next career move, so Apply Now!
The Ideal Candidate Will Have:
- Provide administrative support for organising and processing data
- Understanding of safer recruitment
- Maintain data accuracy and attention to detail
- Excellent ICT skills and an ability to manage a website
- Knowledge of Arbor preferable, training can be given
- Experience in database management
- Enhanced child DBS on the update service or willingness to get one
- 2 recent professional references
- Eligibility to work in the UK
- Demonstrate a diligent and responsible working attitude
Some of the benefits of working for this role include:
- A rewarding role where you can make a real difference in the lives of young people
- A supportive and collaborative working environment
- Dedicated consultant to guide you through the application and support you through-out your journey with Randstad
- Access to 'Refer a Friend' bonus worth up to £300 in shopping vouchers
If so, you may be the perfect fit for this role and we encourage you to apply!
We are committed to safeguarding and promoting the welfare of children and young people. All successful candidates will be subject to an Enhanced DBS check.
Apply now!
We look forward to receiving your application and having the opportunity to welcome you to our team.
Key skills
AI-extracted from the job advert
Application advice
5 AI-generated recommendations to maximise your chances.
⭐ Lead your CV with a Personal Statement that explicitly names 'School Office Manager' and references Arbor MIS, as the advert lists Arbor knowledge as a preferred skill and it is the school's core MIS platform.
📊 Quantify your administrative experience: e.g. 'Managed payroll notifications and absence records for a 60-staff school, reducing processing errors by 25%'.
🎯 Dedicate a bullet point to safer recruitment experience — the advert specifically calls out DBS checks, identity verification, qualification checks, and references as key responsibilities.
🌐 Highlight any experience supporting a Senior Leadership Team directly, as the role is described as 'central to daily operations' and reports to the SLT and Assistant Business Manager.
🤝 Confirm your Enhanced DBS on the Update Service status prominently in your CV header or Personal Statement, as this is listed as an explicit requirement and will accelerate your application.
Suggested CV bullets
3 bullets our AI drafted for this specific advert, mirroring its ATS keywords.
Add these 3 bullets under your most recent experience:
- •Coordinated safer recruitment for 18 new hires across two academic years, managing DBS checks, identity verification, and reference collection with zero compliance breaches.
- •Maintained attendance and assessment records for 420 pupils in Arbor MIS, reducing data entry errors by 30% through a weekly audit process introduced in September 2023.
- •Processed monthly payroll notifications and leaver documentation for a 60-person school staff, cutting processing turnaround from 5 days to 2 days by standardising submission templates.
Free to copy — tailoring requires a 30-sec CV upload.
Your cover letter is ready
We've drafted a cover letter for Randstad Education. Preview the opening, then unlock the full personalised version.
Letter preview — tailored to Randstad Education
Dear Hiring Manager,
Randstad Education's interim School Office Manager vacancy in Huntingdon aligns closely with my background in school business support. Having coordinated safer recruitment processes — including DBS checks, qualification verification, and reference management — and maintained student data within MIS platforms, I am confident I can step into this role and contribute to the Senior Leadership Team from day one.
My background in school administration encompasses payroll notifications, absence monitoring for a 55-strong staff team, and supporting admissions appeals in line with statutory compliance requirements. I am proficient in Arbor and have experience producing accurate census returns under tight deadlines, ensuring data integrity across HR and pupil records.
Free signup, no card needed. Export to PDF/Word requires a £1.99 trial (14 days).
Interview questions
10 questions generated from this advert.
Technical
- ›How have you used Arbor or a similar MIS (e.g. SIMS, Bromcom) to maintain student attendance and assessment data?
- ›Walk us through the safer recruitment process — which checks are required before a new staff member can start in a school?
- ›How do you ensure accuracy when processing payroll notifications or leaver forms, and what checks do you put in place?
- ›Describe your experience managing an admissions or appeals process — what documentation and compliance steps were involved?
- ›What steps do you take to maintain data accuracy and GDPR compliance when handling sensitive HR or pupil records?
Behavioural
- ›Tell me about a time you managed multiple competing administrative priorities under time pressure — how did you decide what to tackle first?
- ›Describe a situation where you identified an error in a data record or process before it caused a problem. What did you do?
- ›Give an example of when you had to communicate a sensitive or difficult message (e.g. a staff absence policy) to a colleague. How did you handle it?
- ›Tell me about a time you had to learn a new system or software quickly. How did you approach it and what was the outcome?
- ›Describe a situation where you supported a senior manager or leadership team during a particularly busy period. What was your contribution?
STAR answer examples
Model answers using the Situation-Task-Action-Result framework. Adapt to your own experience.
Tell me about a time you managed multiple competing administrative priorities under time pressure — how did you decide what to tackle first?
Describe a situation where you identified an error in a data record or process before it caused a problem. What did you do?