Coordinator, School Food Project

Who we are:

Chefs in Schools is a young, ambitious charity that's rapidly growing. Our mission is to improve kids health, through improving school food & food education. We focus our efforts in areas of high socio-economic deprivation, where more than a third of children are entitled to free school meals, and diet-related disease is driving further inequality.

We support and train school kitchen teams to serve the best, freshest and tastiest food possible, alongside meaningful food education. We share learning and resources, aiming to inspire and enable others to follow our lead.

We're backed by some of the biggest names in food and have ambitious targets to ensure every child has access to incredible school food and food education, setting them up for life with the skills and knowledge to feed themselves well.

About you and the role

The School Food Project is an ambitious coalition-led initiative dedicated to transforming the school food system. To achieve this, we are deploying three distinct school engagement models: Beacon schools (intensive, in-person, deep-impact sites), Explorer schools (hybrid training and peer learning), and Discovery schools (online only support).

We are seeking an exceptional School Food Project Coordinator to serve as the operational engine room and central connective tissue of this project. Reporting directly to the Programme Manager for the School Food Project, this role will be responsible for ownership of all school-level coordination.

As the primary point of contact for all participating schools, you will bridge the gap between the school and the individual coalition’s delivery leads. You will be responsible for nurturing school relationships, maintaining seamless communication across all delivery partners, and ensuring that vital monitoring, evaluation, and impact data flows smoothly from the schools to our evaluation team.

The responsibilities, skills and experience listed below are intended to give you an idea of what we need for this role. If you don't meet every requirement but feel you would be able to work with us to deliver the majority of them, we urge you to apply anyway. We are dedicated to building a diverse and inclusive workplace, and for us the most important 'experience' is passion for our mission. You may be just the right candidate for this or other roles. We encourage applicants from all backgrounds, especially those from underrepresented communities, to apply.

We want to get to know you at the interview and understand we can do this best if you're at ease. We're an inclusive employer and work hard to create a welcoming working environment for everyone, including appointing a neurodiversity champion to help us identify how we can make our work environment work for everyone. If you need adjustments to the interview process please let us know.

As we work with children & young people, an offer of employment will be subject to satisfactory references and DBS clearance, in line with our safeguarding policy.

Key responsibilities

School Coordination & Relationship Management

• Responsible for being the day-to-day first point of contact for all Beacon, Explore, and Discovery schools, ensuring they feel supported, informed, and valued.

• Responsible for the induction and onboarding of schools across the Project.

• Conduct regular, proactive site visits to schools, to build strong, empathetic relationships with school leadership, kitchen staff, and project leads. Initially across London and the North West, scaling nationally year on year.

• Use school visits to monitor delivery quality, identify localised operational challenges, and escalate potential issues to the Programme Manager before they impact delivery.

Coalition & Stakeholder Liaison

• Serve as the central touchpoint and coordinator between the delivery leads of each program across the different organisations within our coalition.

• Ensure that all partner organisations are kept fully up to date with real-time, accurate on-the-ground information and feedback from the participating schools.

• Help facilitate communication loops, ensuring action items involving schools are clearly communicated and executed by the relevant coalition partners.

Data Capture & Impact Reporting

• Take ownership of ensuring that required data points, surveys, and metrics are accurately captured within each school according to project timelines, including conducting school audits for Beacon schools where required.

• Package, organise, and report school-level data back to the Monitoring and Evaluation team to help track project success and iterate delivery models.

Insight & Communication Support

• Keep an eye out for exceptional success stories, milestone achievements, and inspiring moments during school visits.

• Act as a conduit for the internal Communications team by passing along these notes, updates, and on-the-ground insights to celebrate the project's impact.

Essential skills & experience

• Exceptional Project Coordination: A proven track record of managing moving parts, timelines, and logistics across multiple sites or projects simultaneously.

• Superb Relationship-Building: Outstanding interpersonal skills with the ability to quickly build rapport, trust, and influence with a diverse range of stakeholders, from school cooks and headteachers to coalition partners.

• Clear, Proactive Communication: Ability to summarise complex feedback from the ground into clear, concise, and actionable updates for senior leadership and external partners.

• Data Diligence: Strong organisational skills with a sharp eye for detail, ensuring data is collected systematically and accurately in line with M&E requirements.

• IT, Software, and Tech Literacy: Proficiency with office software (Google Workspace or Microsoft 365), and familiarity with CRM systems or project management tools.

• Adaptability & Autonomy: Highly self-motivated and comfortable working independently in a hybrid/remote structure, managing your own schedule and priorities effectively.

• Flexibility to Travel: Willingness and ability to travel frequently and extensively across England, specifically prioritising regular visits to school clusters.

Desirable skills & experience

• Sector Familiarity: Prior experience working within, or closely alongside, the UK education sector, schools, charities, or food system initiatives.

• Coalition Experience: Experience working within a multi-partner, consortium, or coalition framework where diplomacy and cross-organisational collaboration are key.

• Problem Solving Skills: Proactive problem-solving skills or the ability to manage and resolve on-the-ground operational challenges.

• Data Protection and GDPR Awareness: An understanding of GDPR compliance.

• A valid UK Driving Licence

Benefits

You would be joining a friendly, supportive team who works hard but believe in a healthy work/life balance. We were voted one of CODE Hospitality's happiest places to work in 2024. We seek a diverse range of perspectives, skills, experience and knowledge. Joining a small, collaborative team means you'll be able to contribute to and draw on various projects and strategic insights.

We offer 33 days of holiday per year including bank holidays, 3 additional office closure days over the Christmas period as well as wellbeing days over the summer school holidays. We also have a Cycle to Work scheme, hybrid working, enhanced parental leave, and free access to the CODE app for discounted restaurants & hospitality venues. We are committed to developing our team and will support you with relevant training opportunities including £250 towards elective training and development of your choice.

We also offer Bupa Dental Insurance, Income Protection Insurance, as well as access to the Aviva Smart Health Platform which offers health benefits including free rapid access online GP appointments, free counselling and wellbeing support.

Application process

In line with our commitment to ensuring a fair and unbiased recruitment process, we invite candidates to answer a series of questions related to their day-to-day job. Please follow this link to answer the questions and submit your application along with your CV.

Each question has a 250-word limit. We recommend that you develop your answers offline and copy them in when you're ready, to make sure you don't lose your work if interrupted.

All communication about your application, other than a verbal job offer, will be sent through the Applied platform - please check your Applied account regularly (as well as your spam folder) for updates.

Your answers will go through our sifting process: all answers are anonymised, randomised and then reviewed by a panel of reviewers. A longlist of candidates will then additionally have their CVs reviewed. Shortlisted candidates will be invited to a 30 minute online interview. Successful candidates will be invited to attend a second, in-person interview at our office in Brixton, London.

Expected duration of this application process: 4-6 weeks

Round one interviews online: Tuesday 25th August

Round two interviews in-person: Wednesday 2nd September