District School Effectiveness Adviser

About the role

District School Effectiveness Adviser

Job ref:  HFL1603

Contract: Permanent

Hours:  37 hours per week, 52 weeks a year

Salary:  Up to £71,000

Location: Hybrid working including remote working. Flexibility is required to work across educational settings in Hertfordshire, and neighbouring areas, along with occasional visits to our office in Stevenage.

Join HFL Education – and help shape the future of primary education in Hertfordshire.

HFL Education (formerly Herts for Learning) is one of the UK’s largest school‑owned, not‑for‑profit providers of school improvement services. We work with schools and settings within and beyond Hertfordshire to ensure every young person receives an excellent education—regardless of background, context, or postcode.

We’re looking for an outstanding, passionate and credible District School Effectiveness Adviser (DSEA) to join our Primary Education Services team. In this influential role, you will support and challenge school leaders, drive school improvement, and contribute to raising outcomes for children across a designated district in Hertfordshire.

You will have the necessary skills and understanding to enable you to support, monitor and challenge schools. In addition, you will lead and collaborate with other advisers and external partners on school improvement initiatives.

This is a high‑impact role where professional credibility, strong leadership and a deep commitment to improving outcomes for all pupils - particularly the most vulnerable - are essential.

Our ‘working from anywhere’ approach provides colleagues the opportunity to work flexibly in line with their role requirements. This consists of working on-site across various schools and settings in Hertfordshire and neighbouring counties, remote working and, if desired, up to two days per week in our Head Office in Stevenage, Hertfordshire. Occasional visits to our Head Office will be required for meetings. The ability to reach different locations by car will be essential for this role. If you drive, then a full driving licence and appropriate car insurance will be required. As there is a permanent home working element to this role, you will need to ensure you are equipped for home working.

If you would you like to know more information about this opportunity, further information can be found in the job outline.  

For an informal discussion regarding the role, please contact Heidi Otranen via telephone

(07580 744501) or email ([email protected]).

To apply please email your HFL application form along with your cover letter to [email protected] by 22nd November 2026.

As part of our move towards eradicating unconscious bias within the recruitment process, we ask that you follow the guidance stated in the application forms and submit these in a word format to enable your application to be anonymised.

To help HFL make sure our policies and working practices are inclusive and non-discriminatory we would like you to complete the HFL equal opportunities form. This will not be stored with your application and will only be used by HR.

To submit your application or to discuss any recruitment queries please email our Central Recruitment Team at [email protected] 

Closing Date: 22nd November 2026 by midnight

Interview date: 3rd December 2026

Start Date: 12th April 2027

 This job advert may close as soon as sufficient applications have been received. To make sure you don’t miss out on this opportunity, please submit your application as soon as you can.

We are committed towards becoming an anti-racist organisation, and our recruitment statement is set out below in support of this.

 HFL is committed to being an equal opportunities employer. We insist on the equal treatment of all current and prospective colleagues and will never condone discrimination on the basis of age, disability, sex, sexual orientation, pregnancy and maternity, race or ethnicity, religion or belief, gender identity, or marriage and civil partnership.

HFL is also equally committed to becoming an anti-racist organisation and we encourage you to view our Anti-racist position statement which gives clarity on our anti-racist stance. In our relentless efforts to be an anti-racist organisation, we recognise the negative impacts of under representation and lack of diversity in our organisation, our education system and in all aspects of our society. Therefore, for recruitment into any HFL post, where we have two or more candidates of equal merit, candidates with protected characteristics will be given advantage over candidates without such characteristics. This is sometimes referred to as a ‘tiebreaker’ and is referred to as ‘positive action’ in the Equality Act 2010.

To help us meet our high standards and aspirations of a fully diverse and inclusive workplace, we strongly encourage suitably qualified applicants from all backgrounds to apply and to join us.

Please note that if you are invited to interview, we will expect you to be prepared to discuss unconscious bias with us; we find these conversations more than any others give us all a good idea of what working together will be like.