Practitioner jobs in East of england

Established in 1999 SeeSaw Grief Support is an award-winning charity supporting children and young people in Oxfordshire who are bereaved or about to be bereaved. The work supporting children, young people and their families is delivered by a team of clinical staff and volunteers, who work with families in their own homes. Because of this regular travel is involved, often at the end of the school day. We regularly provide support for between 400-500 children and young people each year. 

Our clinical team of 5 practitioners, and 12 volunteers, is supported by our Clinical Data and Volunteer Manager. Due to increasing demand for our service, we are expanding our team and looking for a 6th practitioner to join us, focusing on direct work with bereaved children and young people, and those facing the death of a close family member. We are looking for candidates who have gained experience of working with children and young people in a range of settings. You are a good communicator and skilled at making and sustaining supportive relationships with children and young people to effect change.Our practitioners have a caseload of individual children and their families, and liaise with professionals from schools, health, social care and children and young people’s mental health services, as well as with our team of Volunteer Support Workers. You will be able to work collaboratively and on your own initiative, ideally have a qualification in health care, social work, counselling, psychological services or education; knowledge of therapeutic interventions in grief work would be helpful but not essential as training will be given. 

Men, younger people, and individuals from minoritised communities are underrepresented in our workforce and we are particularly keen to encourage applications from these groups.

If you feel you have the qualities to join our small friendly team doing vital work for children and young people in Oxfordshire, please read the job description and person specification below.

Interviews will be held on 9th June

Our ESOL service was established in 2017 and now runs 5 days per week and offers English lessons for resettled refugees and an English Club with an emphasis on learning skills for integration into UK society. We are a growing team of ESOL tutors and creche teams providing training to help refugees and their families to resettle in Bedford Borough and Central Bedfordshire.

About the role

The Early Years Session Lead holds responsibility for leading sessions in our trauma-informed Early Years setting. They do not hold line management responsibility for other practitioners however supervise a small team of L2 practitioners during the sessions.

The Early Years Session Lead is part of the EY Leadership Team, which meet together online on a Weds 15:00-16:00.

In addition the EY Session Lead works in our EY setting in Bedford on a Friday alongside the EY Session Lead (Bedford) and the Senior Early Years Practitioner who holds line management responsibility for the EY team.

We are open to discussing flexible working requests for the right candidate.

You can download a full job description from our website

Next Step

If this sounds like you, please complete our application form and Equal Opportunities form.

Location: Shefford, and Bedford Town Centre

Closing Date: 21st May 2026 at 6pm

Interview Date: 1st June 2026 in Shefford

This is not a traditional classroom teaching role, though it does require strong classroom presence and credibility.

The Secondary Equity Practitioner will be embedded full-time within one partner secondary school, working mainly with teachers to support deep reflection on practice, help surface harmful assumptions and routines, and support more equitable ways of teaching, relating and responding. The role sits at the heart of Class 13’s Equity-Driven Practice Cycle and is central to how we support lasting change in schools. The role will involve regular lesson cover across the 11-17 age range and across a broad range of subjects, enabling teachers to participate in reflection, training and development.

This role will suit an experienced secondary teacher who can build trust quickly, hold complexity without rushing to easy answers, and stay in relationship when conversations become uncomfortable. We are looking for someone who can act as a supportive, reflective, critical friend to teachers, not someone who needs to be the most certain person in the room.

Purpose of the role

To support teachers to reflect critically on their practice, acknowledge their potential for harm, and take meaningful steps towards transforming how they teach and relate to young people.

Before you apply

This role is deeply relational and, at times, emotionally demanding. You will be working with teachers in moments where reflection may feel vulnerable, uncertain or uncomfortable. To do this well, you will need to bring patience and care: the ability to build trust, hold space for honest conversation, and support people to think carefully about their practice in ways that are thoughtful, humane and grounded.

We are looking for someone who can do this with curiosity and humility. Someone who does not need to stand above the work, but is willing to be part of it. The role asks for a person who can support reflection in others while continuing to reflect on their own practice too.

You will also need to be comfortable working in a very small team, where flexibility, and collective responsibility matter.

Key responsibilities

Equity-Driven Practice Cycle

• Build trusting, affirming relationships with teachers and school staff.

• Support teachers to reflect on classroom practice, routines, interactions and assumptions.

• Facilitate one-to-one and small-group reflective conversations that support teachers discover for themselves rather than simply being told what to change.

• Observe lessons and identify patterns, tensions and opportunities for change.

• Cover lessons across the secondary age range and across a range of subjects, creating protected space for teachers to engage in professional reflection and development.

• Support teachers to translate reflection into practical changes in the classroom.

• Contribute to the delivery of Class 13’s  wider professional development offer.

• Support teachers move from defensiveness to curiosity, and from intent to impact, in line with Class 13’s approach.

School-based relationship and culture work

• Build strong working relationships with teachers, support staff and, where appropriate, senior leaders.

• Contribute to a school culture where reflection, honesty and shared responsibility are possible.

• Offer thoughtful challenge to harmful patterns and practices while maintaining trust and relational safety.

• Support the development of more equitable routines, responses and ways of working across school life.

• Work with colleagues and school partners to ensure the work remains grounded in the four Class 13 principles.

Organisational contribution

• Contribute to Class 13’s organisational learning by documenting reflections, patterns, tensions and emerging insights from delivery.

• Work closely with the wider Class 13 team to refine practice, resources and delivery.

• Contribute to blogs, case studies, reports and other written outputs where needed.

• Participate fully in supervision, reflection and team development as part of a small organisation.

What will help someone thrive in this role

We are looking for someone who is:

Understanding
You can read complexity without rushing to simplify it. You listen well, notice what is happening beneath the surface, and extend empathy even when you find someone’s practice difficult or frustrating.

Supportive
You know how to create relational safety. You can help people stay with difficult reflections without shaming them.

Reflective

You can examine your own practice honestly. You are open-minded, thoughtful and willing to question your assumptions. You are able to notice contradictions in yourself as well as others.

Essential skills and experience

• Qualified Teacher Status.

• Significant experience teaching in a UK secondary school.

• Strong classroom practice and the ability to quickly build rapport with young people aged 11-17.

• Confidence in teaching and holding lessons across a broad range of subjects through lesson cover.

• Experience supporting, coaching, mentoring or developing other adults in a school setting.

• Ability to facilitate reflective conversations in a way that is supportive, calm and humanising.

• Ability to build trust with teachers, especially when they feel vulnerable, exposed or defensive.

• Strong understanding of how inequity, harm and deficit thinking can show up in schools.

• Willingness and ability to reflect critically on your own practice.

• Strong written communication skills, with the ability to write clearly and thoughtfully.

• Ability to work flexibly and collaboratively as part of a very small team.

Desirable skills and experience

• Experience in middle or senior leadership.

• Experience in inclusion, behaviour, safeguarding or pastoral leadership.

• Experience designing or delivering professional development.

• Experience of working across whole-school culture changes, not just within your own classroom.

• Familiarity with Class 13’s work, values or wider intellectual influences.

• Experience working in mainstream secondary schools serving communities facing structural inequality.

What we are less interested in

Polished equity language without deep reflection. For us, this work is not about saying the right things, relying on representation alone, or locating the problem only in other people. 

We are looking for someone who can move beyond surface-level familiarity with equity work and show a deeper capacity for reflection, relational practice and change. Awareness-raising, allyship language, and individual or unconscious bias training do not on their own reflect the depth of analysis or practice this role requires.

Class 13’s work asks for something slower and more demanding: a willingness to stay with complexity, examine your own practice as well as the systems around you, and support change in ways that are thoughtful, humane and grounded.

Class 13’s commitment

Class 13 is committed to building an equitable and inclusive workplace. We welcome applications from people from a wide range of backgrounds and experiences, particularly those underrepresented in education and the charity sector.

We know that strong candidates do not always meet every line of a person specification. If this role feels like a strong fit and you can see yourself growing in it, we encourage you to apply.

We are happy to discuss reasonable adjustments throughout the recruitment process and in the role itself.

Application process

To apply, please include:

• your CV

• responses to the application questions below:

Application questions

Please answer all five questions. We recommend around 300-500 words per question. applications without these responses will not be considered.

1. Reflective practice
Describe a time when you came to see that an aspect of your own practice may have been causing harm, or limiting a young person’s experience of school. What supported you to recognise it, and what changed afterwards?

2. Supportive challenge
In this role, you would often be working with teachers who feel vulnerable, defensive or unsure. How would you approach a reflective conversation with a teacher after observing a lesson that raised concerns for you?

3. Classroom credibility
This role involves regular lesson cover across the secondary and sixth form age range and across a broad range of subjects. What helps you quickly establish trust, presence and purpose with a class you do not know well?

4. Small team working
What do you see as the strengths and challenges of working in a very small team? How have you contributed well in that kind of environment before?

5. bell hooks reflection
bell hooks wrote:

“When education is the practice of freedom, students are not the only ones who are asked to share, to confess. Engaged pedagogy does not seek simply to empower students. Any classroom that employs a holistic model of learning will also be a place where teachers grow, and are empowered by the process. That empowerment cannot happen if we refuse to be vulnerable while encouraging students to take risks.”

What does this quote mean to you in the context of teaching, adult reflection and power in schools?

Want to find out more before you apply? 

If you're thinking about applying and want to ask questions, meet some of the team or get a sense of what Class 13 is actually like, we'd love to talk to you. We're running an online drop-in on Monday 27 April, 4:30–5:30pm, where you can ask us anything about the role.  Online drop-in link 

If you'd rather come and see us in person, we'll be at the office on Tuesday 28 April and Thursday 30 April, both 4:30–6:00pm. No preparation needed, no pressure. Just come and have a conversation.