PA/Secretarial/Admin/Finance Officer at Piddle Valley CE First School

What a New Team Member Would Gain

Joining our school as a PA / Secretarial / Administration / Finance Officer means stepping into a role at the heart of a warm, busy, and highly collaborative first‑school environment. Hours 32.50per week, term-time only (38 weeks). A new colleague would gain:

• A deep understanding of how a school operates day‑to‑day, working closely with the Headteacher, staff, pupils, governors, and families.

• Experience across multiple professional domains — PA support, finance, administration, data management, and governance — making this role uniquely varied and professionally enriching.

• A chance to make a visible, positive impact on the smooth running of the school, supporting both staff and pupils to flourish.

How This Role Positively Impacts the School

This role is central to the effectiveness, efficiency, and culture of the school. Its impact includes:

• Ensuring the Headteacher can lead effectively, thanks to high‑quality administrative and organisational support.

• Supporting safeguarding, attendance, admissions, and data accuracy, all of which directly influence pupil outcomes and wellbeing.

• Being the welcoming face of the school, ensuring visitors, parents, and pupils experience a positive, professional first point of contact.

• Finance, ensuring purchase orders, invoices, BACS and Bank Rec are completed in a timely manner and acurately.

This role is not just operational — it actively shapes the school’s ethos, efficiency, and ability to deliver high‑quality education.

Role and Its Purpose

The PA / Secretarial / Administration / Finance Officer role exists to:

• Provide confidential, high‑level support to the Headteacher.

• Ensure financial processes are accurate, timely, and compliant.

• Lead on administrative systems (Arbor) that keep the school running smoothly.

• Manage essential data, including attendance, admissions, exclusions, and pupil records.

• Support staff, pupils, and families through clear communication and efficient organisation.

This role is the backbone of the school office — the person who ensures that everything behind the scenes works seamlessly so that teaching and learning can thrive.

How This Role Fits Within the School and Supports Priorities

This role directly supports the school’s strategic priorities by:

• Enabling strong leadership through diary management, correspondence, meeting preparation, and information collation.

• Ensuring financial sustainability, which is essential for resourcing classrooms, staffing, and enrichment opportunities.

• Maintaining accurate data, which informs decision‑making, safeguarding, attendance strategies, and school improvement planning.

• Supporting a safe, welcoming environment, aligning with the responsibility to “promote and safeguard the welfare of children and young people”.

• Strengthening communication between school, families, governors, and external agencies.

• Attending training and working collaboratively at the Central Team within the MAT.

In short, this role is a key driver of the school’s ability to function effectively, meet statutory duties, and deliver the best possible experience for pupils.

Piddle Valley First School values the diversity of our workforce and welcomes applications from all sectors of the community.

We are committed to safeguarding and promoting the welfare of children and young people; this is a commitment which we expect all staff and volunteers to share. The successful candidate will be required to have a Disclosure and Barring Service check in line with the Governments safer recruitment guidelines.

The pro rata salary shown is based on the number of hours and weeks worked and includes appropriate paid annual leave and bank holiday entitlements.

The salary quoted is the annual salary for the position at the time of advert. The salary will be paid in equal monthly instalments and will be adjusted at the start of employment and again if leaving part way through the school year to ensure the correct salary is received for the work completed in an academic year.

This role is UK based and your Right to Work will need to be established as part of the appointment process.

This post is exempt from the Rehabilitation of Offenders Act (ROA) 1974. The amendments to the ROA 1974 (Exceptions Order 1975, (2013 and 2020)) provide that when applying for certain jobs and activities, certain spent convictions and cautions are ‘protected’, so they do not need to be disclosed to employers, and if they are disclosed, employers cannot take them into account. The MOJ’s guidance on the Rehabilitation of Offenders Act 1974 and the Exceptions Order 1975, provides information about which convictions must be declared during job applications and related exceptions and further information about filtering offences can be found in the DBS filtering guide.

Keeping Children Safe in Education

Piddle Valley First School will conduct online searches of shortlisted candidates. This check will be part of a safeguarding check, and the search will purely be based on whether an individual is suitable to work with children. All aspects of social media and internet searches will be conducted. As care must be taken to avoid unconscious bias and any risk of discrimination, a person who will not on the appointment panel will conduct the searches and will only share information if and when findings are relevant and of concern.