Regional Finance Apprentice: South London Region

Reports to: Senior Finance Manager

Location: South London region

Contract: Permanent

Pattern: Full Time (standard hours 9am – 5.30pm)

Closing date: 10/01/2025

Interviews: w/c 13/01/2025

Salary: £20,000, rising to circa £24,000 after 12 months of service

About The Role

This is a regional position to support Ark secondary academies in South London. This regional role will involve travel within the South London region where we have schools based in Lambeth, Southwark, Wandsworth, Croydon and Greenwich.

As Regional Finance Apprentice, your role is an integral part of the schools in the region, responsible for ensuring high standards of financial integrity. Depending upon which school you are supporting, you will manage the daily and monthly financial processes in the school, ensuring compliance with the requirements of the Academies Financial Handbook. Your duties in each school may vary slightly as you may be required to support the current Finance team(s) in place.

Key Responsibilities:

Working closely with the Senior Finance Manager and Officer and Operations leads to ensure the continuing financial stability of the school
Ensuring accurate and timely processing of purchase invoices and other documents using Concur and PS Financials accounting software, reconciling supplier statements, and preparing payment runs for authorisation
Reconciling school bank accounts, credit card statements, and financial ledgers
Operating petty cash; receiving, recording, and banking monies paid into the school, ensuring all monies outstanding are collected
Working with the Operations leads to ensure goods and services are processed in compliance with current and relevant procurement legislation, ensuring best value is achieved
Support the Senior Finance Manager in driving forward change and initiatives which promote regularity, propriety, value for money, and best standards
Completion of the Level 2 Finance Assistant apprenticeship programme with West London College. You will be expected to attend the college campus in Ealing for one day per week during term time to complete the required classroom-based training
To be willing to undertake appropriate training in line with contractual duties
Support other schools in the region as necessary

Key Requirements:

English and Maths GCSE grade A-C, or equivalent
Right to work in the UK
Willingness to undertake training and other professional development e.g. AAT, ACCA
High level of proficiency with Microsoft Office, especially Excel. Experience with finance or other databases desirable
Confidence and interest in learning new technologies and systems
Strong organisational and time-management skills and the ability to delegate appropriately
Ability to skilfully manage and maintain effective working relationships with colleagues and other stakeholders
Ability to manage own time to enable multi-school regional working
Works productively in a high-pressure environment
High standards and a keen eye for detail
Exercises sound judgment, especially relating to confidentiality and discretion

Benefits:

27 days annual leave plus bank holidays, rising with each year of service up to 30 days after 3-years’ service. This entitlement is pro rata for part time employees. This entitlement excludes bank holidays
Full office closure between Christmas and New Year
As an Ark employee, you will have the opportunity to be part of the TPT (The Pension Trust) scheme, our workplace pension scheme where we make an 11% contribution; you are not required to contribute towards this scheme unless you choose to. Depending on your role you may also be entitled to LGPS which is a defined benefit scheme where you contribute a percentage based on how much you earn (as do we) in exchange for a guaranteed amount in your pension pot every year
Access to high-quality professional learning throughout your career, offering both face-to-face sessions and a bespoke online learning platform
Access to Ark Rewards scheme offering savings from over 3,000 major retailers, interest-free loans available for season tickets or a bike, gym discounts offering up to 40% off your local gym and free eye tests

About Us

We’re an international charity, transforming lives through education. We exist to give every young person, regardless of their background, a great education and real choices in life. In the UK, we’re a network of 39 schools, educating around 30,000 pupils in areas where we can make the biggest difference and we’re recognised as one of the highest achieving academy groups in the country. We want to change the lives of children everywhere, not just in our own schools. So, we create and incubate Ventures designed not only to help pupils in Ark schools, but also to improve education systems.

You’ll be joining a group of like-minded, ambitious individuals who work collaboratively and are all committed to our core mission, that every child has the potential to succeed. Having just celebrated our 20th anniversary, we are shaping our goals for the next 20 and there has never been a more exciting time to join us.

Diversity and inclusion:

We aim to build a diverse and inclusive organisation where everyone – staff and students – can do their best work and achieve their full potential. We want to reflect and represent diverse perspectives across our organisation because we know that doing so will make us stronger and more effective. To know more about Ark’s diversity and inclusion commitments, please click on this link.

Safeguarding statement:

Ark is committed to safeguarding and promoting the welfare of children and young people in its academies. In order to meet this responsibility, its academies follow a rigorous selection process to discourage and screen out unsuitable applicants.

Ark requires all employees to undertake an enhanced DBS check. You are required, before appointment, to disclose any unspent conviction, cautions, reprimands or warnings under the Rehabilitation of Offenders Act 1974 (Exceptions) Order 1975. Non-disclosure may lead to termination of employment. However, disclosure of a criminal background will not necessarily debar you from employment - this will depend upon the nature of the offence(s) and when they occurred. To read more about Ark’s safer recruitment process, please click this link.

Please note we will be reviewing applications on an on-going basis and this role may close earlier than advertised depending on the level of response. We strongly encourage to submit your application at your earliest convenience.

For any questions, please contact recruitment@arkonline.org.

ARK SCHOOLS

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Regional Finance Apprentice