Head of Creative Learning (maternity cover)

Closing date for applications: Tuesday 29th April

Salary: £46,735 - £55,755


Are you a passionate leader in arts education, ready to shape inclusive, inspiring creative experiences for communities, schools, and young people?

Warwick Arts Centre has an exciting opportunity for a 12-month fixed term contract as a Head of Creative Learning (maternity cover). They are on a mission to create a dynamic, relevant, artistically ambitious and sustainable arts centre, and this role will help them achieve their plans.

They believe that the arts are an extraordinary source of wisdom, support, connection, understanding, joy and inspiration for each and every one of us. It’s their job to bring art into more people’s lives and the position of Head of Creative Learning (maternity cover) will lead the team in achieving this.

They are committed to creating an environment where everyone feels they belong, a place of fairness and equity and to be an organisation that reflects the diversity of its city. If this sounds like somewhere you would like to work, we would like to hear from you.

The Head of Creative Learning (maternity cover) sits within our Creative Learning Team and you will lead and implement a high-quality learning and engagement strategy and will collaborate closely with stakeholders, schools, artists, communities, and key funders including University of Warwick and reporting to Arts Council England (ACE). You will work alongside our live programming, visual arts and cinema teams and closely with our visitor experience, marketing and operations teams.

This is an exciting opportunity for a candidate with a passion for arts education and engagement, with a good understanding of working with artists and creatives across artforms and who enjoys working with people at all levels.

The Creative Learning team plays a central role in developing their profile and maintaining Warwick Arts Centre’s presence in the local community, connecting people of all ages and all backgrounds to their programme. The aim of the programme is to discover, inspire, nurture and support the next generation of artists and arts audiences with a focus on people who have been historically excluded and underserved by society. The key audience strands are families and early years, schools, youth, students and communities.

Please note this role will involve some evening and weekend work.

For the full job description, please click Apply to the website and then ‘download further information’ in the top right hand corner.

Responsibilities

Strategy and audience development

• Lead Warwick Arts Centre’s Creative Learning strategy to encompass artistic programme and public events, community engagement, children, and young people – including schools, talent development – young creatives, students, emerging artists and research, evaluation, and impact.
• Design, deliver and produce creative programmes for non-professionals that engage our target groups and draw inspiration from and are shaped by the key themes of the artistic programme.
• Introduce new, diverse audiences through creative programmes and enrichment activities for communities and other groups, working collaboratively with the Marketing team to strengthen overall audience development.
• Deliver learning and engagement opportunities for schools, Warwick students and other educational institutions.
• Develop opportunities to celebrate, develop and involve the immediate and wider communities and diverse groups and inspiring good practice around key social agendas relevant to the region.

Partnership and profile

• Work with colleagues in the development office to identify and secure project funding.
• Sustain and develop active working relationships with University of Warwick colleagues.
• Sustain and develop active connections with regional, national, and international bodies to maintain awareness of and contribute to developments within arts education and learning sectors.
• Act as ambassador and identify regular opportunities to raise the department’s profile.

Project and team management

• Manage and lead the Creative Learning department of permanent and freelance staff and ensure an effective and committed team.
• Set and manage budgets and ensure delivery and monitoring is compliant with relevant stakeholder conditions, including all policies and procedures.
• Ensure robust research and evaluation, impact case studies and accurate data capture for all activity.
• Ensure that appropriate systems are in place for managing logistics, reporting and oversee contractual arrangements with artists, practitioners, companies, and partners.
• Lead on the organisation’s Safeguarding policy and actively implement this and others e.g., Health and Safety and Equality in relation to learning activity.
• The post includes a substantial amount of weekend, evening, and statutory holiday working. Fundamental to the role is the ability and willingness to work during evenings, weekends and school and statutory holiday periods, also to travel across the UK if necessary, to support collaborations with regional partners.

Knowledge, skills and experience

• Educated to degree level or equivalent experience
• Previous experience of working in arts educational environment and up to date knowledge of current practice, learning methodologies and participating arts sector developments
• Project management with proven experience of managing complex projects and programs with multiple stakeholders
• Budget management and financial planning and forecasting with ability to present to senior team
• Excellent IT skills including the ability to adapt to new software
• Previous experience of working in the performing arts / visual arts and venue administration with good knowledge of creative arts education sector
• Demonstrable leadership and people management skills
• Excellent communication and interpersonal skills with the ability to maintain good contacts and relationships working at all levels
• Experience of leading, developing and delivering successful creative learning strategies
• Ability to work collaboratively across a large organisation and contribute to strategic plan / objectives
• Willingness to work unsocial hours

Please note you will be required to complete an enhanced DBS application if successful for the role.

We welcome and encourage applications from candidates who are under-represented in the creative industries.

Please make sure that you state in your application that you found this role via Creative Access.