Cover Supervisor​/Student and Learning Mentor

Position: Cover Supervisor / Day Student and Learning Mentor
Location: Stourbridge

Cover Supervisor / Day Student and Learning Mentor

Old Swinford Hospital is one of the country's leading state boarding schools. A large number of the School's students are boarders who come from a wide range of backgrounds in the UK and also from the EU and overseas. A third of our pupils are day pupils, who usually go home after lessons, unless they are involved in sport or music, CCF or DofE.

The School is now on an exciting journey to become fully co-educational by 2025. Girls joined us in September 2021 in Year 7, whilst the Sixth Form has been mixed since 2004.

OSH is calm place to work. It is inclusive, tolerant and welcoming. The atmosphere is supportive and orderly, and it is also very relaxed because for many of our pupils their school is also their home. Parents, pupils and staff are all on the same side and our pupils want to learn before going out into the wider world and making their own contribution to it.

We have recently had two Ofsted visits, one for boarding and one for curriculum. You can see these via our website  We enjoy a very good academic reputation and regularly feature in the lists of the most academically successful maintained schools. We’re not about league tables, however. We pride ourselves on developing in our pupils a balance of academic achievement, character and resilience and we’ve been doing this now for nearly 360 years.

Our extensive extra-curricular programme contributes to our pupils becoming happy, healthy and interested young people, for whom sport, music, art, drama, outdoor pursuits feature in their everyday lives.

A major building programme has recently been completed which includes a large extension to an already impressive sports centre, an all-weather floodlit sports pitch, a new teaching block with a specialist arts room, a performing arts centre and a new senior boarding house.

Person Specification

• Educated to degree level (desirable);
• GCSE Maths and English Grade C or above;
• Motivation to work with children and young people;
• Experience in a classroom role including classroom organisation and management, supporting the planning and delivery of the curriculum, implementing behaviour and learning strategies;
• Ability to undertake a range of teaching activities with confidence, working effectively with individual pupils, groups of pupils and whole class;
• Good administrative, organisational and computer skills;
• Work constructively and collaboratively as part of a team whilst being able to demonstrate initiative;
• Effective use of ICT to support learning;
• Excellent oral and written communication skills.

Job Specification

1. Under the guidance of teaching staff to provide supervision to whole classes during the short-term absence of teachers. The Cover Supervisor ensures that work set by a teacher is properly completed, that a good learning atmosphere is maintained, in the classroom at all times and that school policies on dress and behaviour are upheld.

2. Provides adult supervision for day students before lessons, during break and lunchtimes alongside other members of staff. Also, works with other members of staff to provide pastoral support and in tracking and monitoring the behaviour and attendance of day students, contacting home when appropriate to do so.

Specific Responsibilities

• Supervise work set by absent Teachers or Head of Department;
• Manage a classroom, ensuring that students remain on task with the work they have been set;
• Establish productive working relationships with pupils, acting as a role model and setting high expectations;
• Promote the inclusion and acceptance of all pupils in the classroom, recognising and responding to their individual needs;
• Manage the behaviour of pupils within the School's policies;
• Report, using the School's…