Job Introduction
We are seeking professional and customer focused Receptionist/Telephonist to join our Reception Team for two days a week. We are looking for an individual who can work independently as well as part of a team.
The role will involve being the first point of contact for visitors to the School either by phone, email or in person.
Reception experience would be advantageous, and a personable manner is essential. The ideal candidate will be friendly, approachable with excellent customer service and communication skills.
The role is two days a week, Monday and Tuesday, between 8:00 to 17:00, with a one-hour unpaid lunchbreak. This is a term-time only.
Benefits include free school meals whilst on duty, and free access to the School’s leisure facilities, including a fitness gym.
Staff members can access the School’s Cycle to Work Scheme and season ticket loans following completion of our standard probation period.
Main Responsibilities
The main responsibilities and key tasks
- To meet all visitors to the School during term time, particularly pupils' parents and prospective pupils' parents
- To ensure visitors are correctly badged and briefed on safeguarding and safety requirements for visiting the School
- To inform members of staff when visitors have arrived
- To ensure that visitors are looked after until collected by a member of the School’s staff
- To receive post and deliveries
- To manage the Reception Diary
- To liaise with Job Share partner
- To work with the School's Security Team, with whom the main Reception is shared
Please note this job description is not exhaustive. Any significant and permanent amendments to the document will be made after consultation with the job holder.
The Ideal Candidate
Please refer to the attached person specification for further details.
Equal Opportunities
We are an equal opportunities employer. We therefore encourage candidates to apply irrespective of age, disability, marriage or civil partnership status, pregnancy or maternity, race, religion and belief, gender identity, sex or sexual orientation.
Safeguarding and Child Protection
Westminster School is committed to safeguarding and promoting the welfare of children. Applicants must be willing to undergo child protection screening appropriate to the post, including checks with past employers and the Disclosure and Barring Service.
About The School
Working at Westminster
Westminster School is a busy, purposeful and vibrant place to be and an excellent workplace. The community is made up of 750 pupils, 120 teaching staff and 108 support staff.
Westminster School is friendly and welcoming, and all newcomers quickly become part of the rhythm of life here.
There is a real sense of community here as, being a boarding school many members of staff and pupils live on site and the School’s premises are very much treated as a home away from home. School life starts before breakfast and continues way beyond the working day; as a result, there is always a lively atmosphere in and around School and always someone to share a tea and biscuit with in the Common Room. Support staff as much as teaching staff are encouraged to embrace the School’s day-to-day activities, whether that be attending an evening concert or a morning service in the Abbey.
At Westminster we will always select the best candidate for every position. We do know, however, that we can only truly choose the best person on every occasion if a broad and diverse pool of candidates see the job advertised and are encouraged to apply.
As such, we continue to work on how our job roles are encountered, and particularly welcome applications from groups who have traditionally been underrepresented here.
Westminster School is for everyone, regardless of gender, ethnicity, sexual orientation or any other protected characteristic. We hope you are encouraged to apply.
The School
Westminster School is a selective day and boarding school for boys aged 13 to 18 and girls aged 16 to 18. There are approximately 360 boys in the Lower School (Years 9 to 11) and 400 boys and girls in the Upper School (Years 12 and 13). One quarter of the pupils board, and the School is structured and run as a boarding school, with an extended day and week and a strong House-based system of pastoral welfare, for boarding and day pupils alike.
Westminster is an ancient school, whose origins can be traced to a charity school established by the Benedictine monks of Westminster Abbey. Its continuous existence is certain from the early 14th century. Henry VIII personally ensured the School’s survival by statute and Elizabeth I, who confirmed royal patronage in 1560, is celebrated as the School’s foundress. Westminster is rare amongst long-established schools in remaining on its original site in the centre of London. Its proximity to Parliament and Westminster Abbey, and the use of the Abbey for its chapel, together with the stimulating diversity of the South Bank and West End, account in part for its special atmosphere and outlook.
The School is one of the foremost centres of academic excellence both in this country and internationally. Central to its academic ethos is the dialogue between teachers and their pupils, whether in the classroom or in tutorials, inspiring enjoyment of intellectual enquiry, debate and search for explanation and the development of skills of rational, independent thought well beyond any standard examination syllabus. The desired environment is happy, busy and purposeful; the pupils are intellectually, socially, ethically and politically engaged, with plenty of opportunities to develop initiatives and to articulate and defend their views, in line with the enduring values of the liberal tradition reflected in the School’s Charter. That tradition is fully committed also to the nurture of each pupil’s spiritual, moral, emotional and physical development and wellbeing – with a particular emphasis on drawing out individual talent wherever it lies - and to the preparation of young people for fulfilled private and public lives beyond School.
Package Description
Required for: September 2023
Location: Great School (Dean's Yard)
Contract: part-time, term-time only
Hours of work: 8:00 to 17:00, two days a week (Monday and Tuesday)
Salary: £8,600.64 per annum, based on a FTE of £28,710.96,
The deadline for applications is Tuesday 25th July 2023. Interviews will take place Tuesday 1st August 2023.