Communications Manager

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. Working in areas of high deprivation, we support and train schools and their kitchen teams to serve the best, freshest and tastiest food possible, alongside meaningful food education. We share our learning and resources freely, 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

This role will take our charity’s mission to a wider audience at an exciting time of development and growth. For a small communications team, we punch above our weight - regularly hitting the headlines, getting featured on agenda-setting news shows, receiving pro-bono support from renowned agencies and we have high-profile ambassadors, such as Prue Leith, Henry Dimbley and Thomasina Miers in our corner.

We need someone who’s creative, strategic and has great media contacts, or the knowhow to forge them, who can ensure a steady stream of coverage that gets our work in front of key audiences. This is an exciting time. Change is coming to school food - the government has committed to updating the school food standards and you’ll be part of the effort to transform the food kids eat in school every day. You’ll enjoy problem solving, crafting ideas and media opportunities, from stunts to stories.

You’ll be working on exciting projects, experience some incredible food and be surrounded by an ambitious, diverse and dynamic team, all passionate about the power great food and food education in schools has to shape and change young lives.

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:

• Work with the Head of Communications to develop and deliver content, media moments and campaigns that help raise awareness of our cause and achieve our wider strategic goals.
• Work closely with colleagues, school chefs and teachers to unearth compelling content that will connect with key audiences.
• Identify, create and secure opportunities for coverage of our charity’s mission in target publications and platforms.
• Create and deliver communications plans and assets.
• Build networks and contacts within mainstream, education and food-related traditional and social media platforms to secure proactive story and content placement.
• Deal with reactive media queries to tight deadlines, overseeing preparation of briefs and Q&As.
• Oversee the ongoing development of our website and work to improve user experience.
• Evaluate the success of campaigns, setting and tracking key metrics, feeding learnings back into future work in a cycle of continuous improvement.
• Monitor and control spending against delegated budget, clearing any anticipated variance with the Head of Communications in advance.
• Develop and deliver a patron and ambassador strategy.
• Oversee content creation for our online platforms, resources and marketing materials, ensuring brand consistency and appropriate audience targeting.
• Ensure any data collection via our website or other platforms is compliant with GDPR and any related or superseding legislation.
• Line manage and mentor the Communications Officer and Social Media Officer, with a commitment to ensuring their development.

Skills & experience:

• 3+ years prior experience in a similar role.
• You have interest and belief in our mission to improve kids’ health through improving food and food education in schools.
• You are organised, methodical, strong on detail, and able to map out deadlines and plan ahead.
• Experience of line management in a hybrid working environment. You must be committed to developing the team.
• You have proven success designing and delivering communications plans and campaigns.
• You have experience successfully pitching stories and/or collaborations to media, journalists and influencers.
• You understand how to create engaging content - both written and visual.
• You spot opportunities for coverage and know how to make them happen.
• You’re up to date on media and communications trends and able to stay ahead of the curve.
• You’re capable of managing multiple projects simultaneously.
• You’re confident enough to deputise for the Head of Communications, such as deciding which reactive media queries to pursue, presenting at events and crisis management.
• You can constructively critique the work of others with an emphasis on learning and continuous improvement.
• You have excellent writing skills and communication skills.
• Experience of education media would be nice.

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.

We recommend that you develop your answers offline and copy them in when you’re ready to ensure you don’t lose your work if interrupted.

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

For the first interview, we will ask you to submit a short written exercise.

Expected duration of this application process: 4-6 weeks

Please click on the apply button to progress with your application.