Deputy Head

Business Unit:

Canterbury College

Location:

Canterbury, Kent

Salary Details:

£47,204 (FTE) per annum

Hours Per Week:

37

Weeks Per Year:

52

Annual Leave:

38 days (FTE) per annum

Proposed Interview Date:

16/12/2025

Advertising End Date:

01/12/2025

Lead with vision. Inspire the future of care...

Join us as a Deputy Head of Early Years and Health and Social Care

East Kent Colleges Group are seeking an ambitious and inspiring Deputy Head of Department to join our Early Years, Health and Social Care team at EKC Canterbury College. This is an opportunity for someone passionate about shaping the next generation of carers, educators and support professionals — someone who can raise the bar for teaching, learning and assessment while keeping a close eye on key performance indicators and taking swift, effective action when needed.

As Deputy Head, you'll play a pivotal role in developing a dynamic, relevant curriculum that prepares learners for meaningful careers across Early Years and Health & Social Care. Working closely with the Head of Department, you'll help to deliver the strategic plan for the area, ensuring that everything we offer is engaging, current and aligned with the needs of the sector and our community.

You'll also drive quality improvement across the department, implementing the area's improvement plan and continually enhancing the student experience. Each month, you'll analyse key data — including retention, achievement, attendance and

Alongside our priority of excellent student experience, we also focus on our employees. Here are just some of our benefits when working for the East Kent Colleges Group:

• Generous Annual Leave - 38 days FTE per annum
• Learning and Development Opportunities - 3-4 annual paid group development days, bespoke programmes e.g. First Line Manager Development Programme and strong internal progression-1 in 3 roles are filled internally
• Flexible Personal Leave - Time off for your child's first day at nursery, school or college, moving homes and for interviews
• Competitive Pension Scheme - 28%
• Exclusive Discounts & Perks - Inc. restaurant, grocery, retail and holidays discounts as well as car leasing and tech purchasing schemes, on-site nursery
• Wellbeing and Health Support - Generous sick pay, counselling services, discounted gym membership at Canterbury College, free eye tests and glasses vouchers, flexible support for medical appointments and return-to-work support
• Culture and Recognition - Being part of Community Days, an Annual Staff Celebration Day, and an eco-friendly organisation dedicated to reaching net-zero by 2030

We are seeking a highly organised and enthusiastic individual to work alongside the Head of Department in overseeing the delivery of our programmes of study and courses. You will bring a proven track record of driving high standards and achieving meaningful improvement within a department.

With a background in education and a recognised teaching qualification, you will ideally have experience in line managing or leading a team. In this role, you will take responsibility for staff appraisals, teaching and learning observations, and one-to-one meetings, while providing leadership and support to a team of lecturers and support staff. Experience within a further education environment is essential, as is the ability to support teaching teams in delivering high-quality learning experiences for young people. You will also act as the first point of contact for programme leaders whenever the Head of Department is off site.

You will have strong experience in the planning, delivery and assessment of Technical Level qualifications in Health and Early Years Education. Your primary teaching responsibilities will sit within the Health curriculum area, so relevant clinical skills knowledge and qualifications are essential.

In addition, you will lead on the Internal Quality Assurance process, and therefore an assessor qualification or equivalent is required.

There's no need to spend hours updating your CV, complete our short application form. You can save your progress as you go, and we'll be in touch with all candidates after the closing date.

If you'd like an informal chat about the role or have any questions, feel free to email us at

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.