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People Partner (People Advisor)
Full-time: 37 hours per week Monday to Friday however some flexibility may be available*
Salary: £35,412 - £38,220 per annum
Annual leave: 32 days plus bank holidays
Pension Scheme: LGPS
* We are open to discussing the possibility of flexible working, for example: a minimum of 30 hours per week or working 37 hours per week on a term-time plus 4 weeks contract could be considered subject to agreeing a working pattern which meets the needs of the service.
We are looking for an enthusiastic and experienced People Partner or HR Advisor to join our team and support us to deliver a proactive and customer focused service across the Education Village Academy Trust (EVAT). EVAT is a multi-academy trust providing mainstream and special schools and academies serving the borough of Darlington and neighbouring areas.
The People team provide a full range of HR support and advice to the Trust across all aspects of the employee lifecycle, and you would play a key role in supporting the work that we do. You will provide a full range of HR advice and support to your schools including: recruitment and onboarding, absence management, employee relations as well as coaching managers to deal with people issues. This is a generalist role.
We are a small but busy team, and you will need to be able to multi-task and prioritise your workload to ensure that work is completed in a timely and accurate manner. You will be working as part of a team of 3 People Partners along with a HR Administrator and Payroll Officer to ensure that our customers receive a high quality and seamless HR service. This is a great opportunity for an experienced People Partner to continue to develop their career in HR where you'll benefit from on the job coaching and support and if you're looking for career progression we can also look at potential options for formal study too. Experience within the education sector is not essential, it's more important that you share our passion for making a difference to the lives of children and young people.
To find out more about the role please see the attached job description and person specification. You can also find out more about EVAT including our values and ethos on our website
If you would like to have an informal discussion about the role, please contact
Closing Date: Friday 10th October noon)
Shortlisted candidates will be contacted on Monday 13th October 2025
Interview Date: 22nd & 23rd October 2025
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Job Description
Job Purpose
The key purpose of this role is to provide a full range of HR advice and support to your schools across all aspects of the employee lifecycle including recruitment and onboarding, employee relations and coaching managers to deal with people issues. As part of your role you will also attend monthly management meetings to discuss an agreed dashboard of HR metrics, identify key challenges and find solutions to address them. You will also have the opportunity to work on proactive activities and projects to achieve delivery of key elements of the People Strategic Plan.
Key Responsibilities and Accountabilities
You will be required to work collaboratively to meet the expected outcomes of this key role:
1. Engage with identified school leaders in the development and deployment of effective HR approaches to managing, supporting and developing the people assets across the Trust.
2. Advise and coach managers on the application and interpretation of People policies and procedures in accordance with current employment legislation, to ensure consistency, accuracy and best practice
3. Provide high quality advice and guidance directly to managers to facilitate the early resolution of difficult, complex or sensitive employee relations issues, ensuring that the risks associated with such cases are effectively managed
4. Support the management of complex employee cases relating to disciplinary, grievance, performance and sickness absence. This includes providing advice to managers on policy/procedure and legislation, liaising with Occupational Health, supporting formal investigations and hearings
5. Actively contribute to the development and implementation of new policies, procedures and practices and review in line with legislation, current best practice and EVAT's requirements
6. Work closely with People Director to support, implement and embed new strategies and initiatives across EVAT in line with both the Organisational and People strategic plans
7. Proactively support management of change issues, leading in formal consultation exercises and processing information such as TUPE due diligence and redundancy calculations
8. Build and maintain excellent relationships with Senior Leaders throughout EVAT to understand the Academies and have a collaborative and pro-active approach to solving people issues
9. Initiate innovative forms of People service delivery and identify improvement opportunities to maintain and develop the People service provision
10. Develop and put into place a range of learning and development events and programmes which meet the identified training needs of various staff groups
11. Deliver a range of training workshops and seminars to school managers which will enable them to manage people issues such as recruitment, performance management, disciplinary and capability issues and absence management, and supporting them in delivery of these people management issues
12. Participate in ad hoc project work to support the delivery of the Trust's Strategic Plan and associated people strategies
13. Undertake continuous professional development including participating in performance reviews and attending training as/when required
14. Produce key performance data for external audit purposes in a timely and accurate manner and feed this back into the Trusts People metrics to enable pro-active management of the Trusts People resource. (The Senior People Partner will lead in this specific task)
15. Provide cover for Payroll and Administration team members when required to ensure that a seamless HR service is provided to our customers. (Training will be provided on payroll systems and processes)
16. Contribute to the preparation of the monthly payroll, responding to queries raised by Finance colleagues and maintaining and up-to-date knowledge of the payroll administration process
This Job Description is not definitive and outlines key accountabilities – colleagues are expected to be flexible regarding their accountabilities and will from time to time be asked to carry out other duties to ensure achievement of organisational goals.
Person Specification (Essential (E) or Desirable (D))
Qualifications
Qualification in Human Resources Management (Level 5 or above) or equivalent experience - E
Postgraduate Diploma or Master's degree in Human Resources Management - D
CIPD Associate or Chartered Membership - D
Skills
Proficient in Microsoft Office programmes - E
Experience of using HR and Payroll systems - E
Ability to collate, manage and analyse data to provide organisational insight through trends and themes - E
Proactive and solution focused to achieve results - E
Knowledge / Experience
Experience of providing HR advice and support across the employee life cycle including recruitment, organisational change, absence management and employee relations as well as coaching and advising managers on all people matters. - E
Proven record of collaborative working with Executive/Senior Management and external stakeholders - E
Thorough knowledge of employee relations, employment legislation, HR policy and procedure - E
Experience of engagement with Trade Unions and/or employee voice panels - D
Ability to interpret policies, procedures and situations to identify pragmatic solutions / recommendations - E
Experience of dealing with matters confidentially and sensitively with a sound knowledge of GDPR - E
Working knowledge and experience of working within the education sector - D
Awareness of child protection / safeguarding issues - E
Experience of School Management Information Systems (e.g. SIMS) - D
This post is subject to an enhanced DBS check and references.
You must have right to work in the UK for this role.
Job Types: Full-time, Permanent
Pay: £35,412.00-£38,220.00 per year
Benefits:
* Company pension
* Cycle to work scheme
* Employee discount
* Free flu jabs
* Free parking
* On-site parking
Work Location: In person