Business Unit:
Ashford College
Location:
Ashford, Kent
Salary Details:
From £43,273 up to £45,654 (FTE) per annum
Hours Per Week:
18.5
Weeks Per Year:
52
Annual Leave:
You will be expected to work 189 days during the academic year (pro rata for part time staff)
Proposed Interview Date:
07/12/2026
Advertising End Date:
26/11/2026

About The Role

Innovate Learning, Unlock Potential, Shape Student Success - Join us as Programme Director for Early Years

 

A fantastic opportunity has become available at Ashford College, within EKC Group, for a Programme Director of Early Years. This is predominantly a teaching role, with the expectation to support development of the curriculum area.

 

You'll be teaching, supporting and assessing students coursework.

As a Programme Director at EKC group you will plan a highly relevant and distinctive curriculum to meet the local/regional skills requirements, and the needs of the student, in liaison with the department leadership team to support outstanding progression for students.

 

You will also lead and coordinate the delivery team so all students receive up-to-date course information during there time at college. You'll create course/programme activities to support student understanding of the objectives, assessment schedules and requirements in line with awarding body criteria, including the course handbook.

Key Details

Salary: £21,636-£22,827 per annum 

Contract: Permanent

Hours per week: 18.5

Working Pattern: To be discussed at interview

Alongside our priority of excellent student experience, we also focus highly on our employees!

Here are just some of our benefits when working for the East Kent Colleges Group:

  • Generous Annual Leave
  • Flexible Personal Leave
  • Exclusive Discounts & Perks
  • Wellbeing and Health Support
  • Competitive Pension Scheme

Full list of company benefits

About You

The ideal candidate will be highly organised, creative and be able to plan and teach engaging and innovative lessons with demonstrated interpersonal skills. Assessing and tracking student progress, to further plan intervention this will be a vital part of the role and ensuring all students develop the skills they need to succeed.

The successful candidate will be passionate about making a difference to the future careers of our students, providing academic leadership and guidance in this area and managing the curriculum delivery and accreditation. Teaching and vocational experience is essential and strong leadership skills are desirable.

This is the ideal opportunity for a proven teacher or lecturer to progress their career to the next stage as you will oversee the curriculum provision from the beginning, building relationships with key stakeholders as well as delivering high quality teaching, learning and assessment. 
 
It is a requirement for teaching experience and qualified teacher status for this position. 
 
No need to spend time updating your CV, just click apply and complete our short application form. You can save your progress as you go, and we’ll review all applications and get back to all candidates after the closing date. 

If you have any queries, please email us on [email protected]
 
Please note that there are two salary scale points for our Programme Director positions. All candidates will start at the introductory salary scale point unless certain criteria are met. Employees can move up the salary scale once you have worked as a Programme Director for our group for one entire academic year, subject to approval. Therefore, internal applicants may qualify for the higher salary scale, although should seek clarification.

About Us

Outstanding Ofsted Provider

East Kent Colleges Group is an Ofsted Outstanding rated provider. It is proud to be the first General Further Education college organisation in the country to have received the Outstanding grade against each of the strands under the new Ofsted inspection framework. An inclusive provider, our colleagues place our students and the communities we serve at the heart of everything they do across EKC Group and this is illustrated in our ‘Strong’ skills grading by Ofsted.

Commitment to Safeguarding

We are committed to safeguarding and promoting the welfare of children and vulnerable adults and we ensure that all staff are aware of their responsibilities for upholding these principles.

As a designated establishment, we are exempt from the Rehabilitation of Offenders Act 1974 and therefore have an obligation to carry out checks to ensure that staff are suitable to work with children and vulnerable adults. These checks include conviction/caution self-declaration, Enhanced DBS check and obtaining sufficient referencing.

It is a criminal offence to apply for a post which involves engaging in regulated activity relevant to children if you are barred from doing so.

If you are successful in being shortlisted to interview, your suitability to work with children and vulnerable adults will be explored as part of the interview process.

Commitment to Equality, Diversity and Inclusion

East Kent Colleges Group is an equal opportunities employer and welcomes applications from all members of our communities. We are particularly keen to increase the diversity of our staff body and encourage applications from candidates where there is underrepresentation in our workforce.

We are proud to hold the Positive About Disability Award and are a Disability Confident Employer. This confirms our commitment to interviewing all applicants who declare that they have a disability and who meet the essential criteria outlined in the person specification. With any successful candidate, we will explore any reasonable adjustments to a role due to a health needs or disability.

Similarly, we have a commitment to Care Leavers (Care Covenant Pledge) and to current or previous Armed Forces personnel (Armed Forces Covenant Pledge) with a commitment to interview applicants who meet the positions essential criteria and who have declared this on their application. 

We welcome applications from anyone wishing to work flexibly and those considering a return to work from a career break.

We do not engage with agencies for permanent staff and have an in-house recruitment team.

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