Overall Purpose
The Canford Group employs approximately 600 staff. The Human Resources department provides a professional, effective, and compliant HR service to all member schools, ensuring adherence to Safer Recruitment, Safeguarding Children, and all relevant legislative and regulatory requirements.
To provide high-quality, efficient HR coordination and administrative support across the employee lifecycle, ensuring compliance with safeguarding and employment requirements. The role acts as a first point of contact for staff queries, supports recruitment and onboarding processes, maintains accurate HR systems and records, and contributes to staff wellbeing and engagement initiatives.
Duties
Employee relations
- Act as the first point of contact for staff queries, providing timely and professional advice on employment matters, contracts, and pay-related queries, escalating where appropriate
- Support the HR team with employee relations processes, including the coordination of meetings and documentation
- Organise and support exit interviews, ensuring feedback is captured and shared appropriately
- Assist with the preparation and collation of data for statutory and census returns
HR Administration & Systems
- Manage HR inboxes (HR Admin, Wellbeing, Work Experience and Training), triaging and responding efficiently
- Maintain accurate employee records within HR systems (e.g. My Canford), ensuring data integrity and compliance with payroll deadlines
- Support with the maintenance of the Single Central Register
- Process employee lifecycle changes (changes to terms, leavers), ensuring all approvals are in place
- Produce leaver documentation, trigger workflows, and manage file archiving in line with data retention policies
- Support ongoing maintenance and improvement of HR systems in collaboration with the HR team
Wellbeing, Engagement & Development
- Support the coordination of staff wellbeing initiatives, promoting physical, mental and emotional wellbeing
- Coordinate internal engagement activities such as “Your Voice” meetings
- Assist with the administration of development tools (e.g. Strengthscope)
- Support the organisation of work experience placements and volunteer programmes
Learning & Development Coordination
- Coordinate mandatory training activities, including safeguarding, INSET and first aid training
- Support induction processes for new starters as required
- Maintain training records and ensure compliance with mandatory requirements
Operational & Administrative Support
- Provide diary and administrative support to the Head of Human Resources
- Coordinate pension meetings with external advisors and staff
- Maintain systems such as EAP (Health Assured) and TES Develop, ensuring employee records are current
- Coordinate the tracking of the HR budgets
- Undertake general administrative duties to support the HR function as required
Recruitment, Safeguarding & Compliance
- Provide cover in the absence of the Recruitment Administrator or if workload increases during seasonal peaks.
Knowledge / Experience
- Educated to A’level standard or equivalent (D)
- Administration qualification or equivalent (D)
- Excellent administration skills (E)
- Secretarial and/or administrative experience (E)
- High degree of computer literacy, including MS Office and use of databases (E)
- High standard of written English (E)
- Experience in the education sector (D)
- Experience of working in an HR department (D)
- Excellent written and oral expression (E)
- Good telephone and office manner with the ability to deal with enquiries in a professional manner (E)
- Ability to organise and manage a busy workload (E)
- Ability to prioritise effectively and manage conflicting demands (E)
- Professional approach and ability to communicate effectively with staff and members of the public (E)
- Works well under pressure (E)
- Professional discretion (E)
- Organised, able to manage time effectively (E)
- Keen eye for detail (E)
- Proactive approach (E)
- Flexible and adaptable (E)
- Friendly and approachable (E)
- Flexible approach to work (E)
- Lives locally (D)
Interviews will take place on Thursday, 2nd July 2026
Canford School is committed to safeguarding and promoting the welfare of children and young people and expects all staff and volunteers to share this commitment.
All successful job applicants will be required to undergo child protection screening. We are committed to equality, diversity and inclusive in our workplace and encourage applications from a diverse range of suitable qualified candidates
