Academic Manager

The British Council builds connections, understanding and trust between people in the UK and other countries through arts and culture, education and the English language.

We work in two ways – directly with individuals to transform their lives, and with governments and partners to make a bigger difference for the longer term, creating benefit for millions of people all over the world. We help young people to gain the skills, confidence and connections they are looking for to realise their potential and to participate in strong and inclusive communities. We support them to learn English, to get a high-quality education and to gain internationally recognised qualifications. Our work in arts and culture stimulates creative expression and exchange and nurtures creative enterprise. We connect the best of the UK with the world and the best of the world with the UK.

These connections lead to an understanding of each other's strengths and of the challenges and values that we share. These builds trust between people in the UK and other nations which endures even when official relations may be strained. We work on the ground in more than 100 countries. In 2019-20 we connected with 80 million people directly and with 791 million overall, including online and through our broadcasts and publications.

Pay Band: Senior Teacher
Location: Dhaka, South Asia, Bangladesh
Contract type: Fixed Term for Non Bangladesh citizen and Permanent for Bangladesh citizen
Closing date:10 January 2024

Role Purpose:

  • To maintain and enhance professional development and academic quality in the teaching centre, through the management of in-house teacher development programmes and support.
  • To promote and ensure quality teaching and effective learning of English.
  • To provide learners with a rewarding and stimulating English language learning experience.
  • To support the wider aims of British Council and its cultural relations mission

Main Accountabilities:

Teacher Capacity Development

  • Manage a pool of Teachers of English and support for staff including observations as per performance management guidelines, policies, and procedures.
  • Ensure that all teaching is delivered to standards set out in teachers Role Profiles, the Global Statement of Approach and British Council Global Teaching Standards.
  • Proactively monitor the well-being of all line managees and provide an appropriate level of personal support.
  • Act as duty officer where appropriate to provide support for teachers, parents, students.
  • Assist in the recruitment, induction, and onboarding of new teachers.
  • Provide or set up mentoring programmes for new teachers/teachers teaching new life stages etc where appropriate.

Teaching Excellence

  • Contribute to the design and implementation of an annual CPD programme which aligns with Regional Teaching Excellence Action Plan.
  • Actively identify appropriate opportunities for staff learning and development.
  • Act as a role model for good classroom practice by encouraging teachers to observe you or others teaching, doing demonstration lessons, leading teacher development sessions, and conducting observations.
  • Share thought leadership. Routinely monitor developments in ELT theory and practice and bring these to the attention of your teaching team through presentations, practical sessions, recommended reading.
  • Represent the British Council at local ELT conferences, where appropriate
  • Proactively look for opportunities to highlight examples of best practice within the centre and externally.

Product and service delivery and development

  • Ensure frameworks to support teaching and learning (Statements of Approach, IP, Teaching Standards Framework, Product guidelines, TEAP) are understood and implemented by academic colleagues in their day-to-day work.
  • Ensure other relevant colleagues (e.g. TOps, CS, TAs) are aware of frameworks to support teaching and learning.
  • Ensure teachers communicate relevant policies to learners (e.g. statement of approach, behaviour policy, product information, EDI etc) during the course and support and advise other teams with communications (e.g CS and Marketing).
  • Collaborate with the Teaching Operations and Customer Services teams to deal with academic enquiries or complaints ensuring teachers are fully briefed and consulted where appropriate.
  • Contribute to the continuous improvement cycle by closely liaising with appropriate cluster / regional product teams to ensure feedback on global products and service design as well as customer / students and market insight are fed into future development.
  • Organise the piloting of new courses and materials where relevant.
  • Introduce new products to teaching staff and provide training and support for teachers.

Safeguarding, EDI and SEND

  • Embed Safeguarding culture in teaching and learning through contributing to country safeguarding risk assessment and plan and implementing assigned actions.
  • act as Deputy / Safeguarding Focal point as appropriate to size of country operation and risk profile.
  • embed EDI through delivery of regional EDI objectives and workplans through local teaching teams (e.g. through Teaching Excellence Action Plan - TEAP).
  • act as or support country SEND champion / Country SENCO and work with Teaching Operations, CS and other colleagues as appropriate to ensure teaching centre inclusion policy is effectively embedded in the centre.

Role specific knowledge and experience
Essential

  • 2 years post-diploma i.e. DELTA/Trinity Diploma TESOL experience.
  • Extensive knowledge and experience of management and delivery of teacher training.
  • Experience of line managing/ coordinating teaching teams.
  • Experience in teaching relevant age groups to be specified by the centre
  • Early Years aged 2 to 5 (400+hours).
  • Primary aged 6 to 10 (400+ hours).
  • Lower Secondary aged 11 to 14 (800+ hours).
  • Upper Secondary aged 15 to 17 (400+ hours).
  • University/Vocational students aged 18 to 25 (400+hours).
  • Adults General English 18+ (800+ hours).

Other experience (centre specific):

  • Ability to work in a way that promotes the safety and wellbeing of children.  
  • Experience of working with children 

Education

Essential

  • Undergraduate Degree.
  • Cambridge CELTA/Trinity Certificate TESOL.
  • Cambridge DELTA/Trinity Diploma TESOL or equivalent as recognised by the British Council.
  • Relevant Young Learner qualification (for ST YL).

 Desirable

  • Relevant masters/post graduate qualification

Additional Information:

  • Applicants should be Bangladeshi passport holder or legally entitled to work in Bangladesh
  • All necessary background checks as per the British Council Pre-Appointment Screening policy along with medical check-up will need to be completed successfully prior to signing the final employment contract.

Only shortlisted applicants will be contacted and called for interview. We will only shortlist applications submitted on a British Council application form submitted electronically through our careers portal. Any hard copies of the application and incomplete application in the portal will not be accepted.

To apply, please click on the following link that will take you to the careers portal of British Council - Apply here

A connected and trusted UK in a more connected and trusted world.

Equality Statement

The British Council is committed to a policy of equality and to valuing diversity and is keen to reflect the diversity of the societies in which we work at every level within the organisation. We welcome applications from all sections of the community. We aim to abide by and promote equality legislation by following both the letter and the spirit of it to avoid unjustified discrimination, recognising discrimination as a barrier to equality of opportunity, inclusion and human rights. All staff worldwide are required to ensure their behaviour is consistent with our policies.
The British Council has Disability Confident Employer Status. We offer a guaranteed interview scheme for disabled applicants who meet the essential criteria for the role. Applicants are encouraged to highlight any specific requirements or adjustments needed to enable participation in the recruitment process.

The British Council is committed to safeguarding children, young people and adults who we work with.

We believe that all children and adults everywhere in the world deserve to live in safe environments and have the right to be protected from all forms of abuse, maltreatment and exploitation as set out in article 19, UNCRC (United Nations Convention on the Rights of the Child) 1989.

Appointment to positions where there is direct involvement with vulnerable groups will be dependent on thorough checks being completed; these will include qualification checks, reference checks, identity & criminal record checks in line with legal requirements and with the British Council’s Safeguarding policies for Adults and Children.