Chef Trainer

Chefs in Schools; United Kingdom; On-site; GBP 30,000 - 50,000; Full time

Job description

This is an exciting opportunity for an engaging and organised trainer to join our growing charity, supporting our mission to transform children's health through school food and the delivery of an empowering and one-of-a-kind School Chef Educator Training Programme.

Who we are:

Chefs in Schools is a young, ambitious charity that is 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 are 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 is an integral part of an ambitious programme to empower and train up the country’s school kitchen workforce through our School Chef Educator Programme, a hybrid course set over 10 weeks, including in-person sessions, webinars and self-guided e-learning on our learning platform. The programme has successfully trained over 130 school chefs nationwide, from London to Yorkshire, the West Midlands to Cornwall.

Our ultimate goal is that every school in the country has a person leading their kitchen who is a recognised food educator, playing a crucial role in shaping kids' eating habits for life.

Your role will be to deliver the School Chef Educator Programme both in-person and online to school kitchen workforces across the country, helping to inspire them to achieve higher levels of knowledge and standards of food quality.

Supported by the Programme Manager, you will maintain and develop the online learning platform, design new and exciting training materials and learner experiences in order to maintain relevance and attract new customer bases across the school food sector.

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.

Key responsibilities include, but are not limited to:

1. Lead on the organisation and delivery of in-person and online training sessions to enrolled participants of the School Chef Educator Programme at a variety of locations.
2. Assist in the maintenance of the online database of participants, schools and funder information.
3. Manage, monitor and report learner progress to the Programme Manager.
4. Maintain, update and develop relevant training materials to keep our programme up to date.
5. Work with our evaluation team to monitor and survey the effectiveness of the training programme.
6. Design and refine the delivery of the core modules within our training programme as well as additional resources to support organisational objectives.
7. Lead on planning, scheduling and delivering programmes, in a time efficient and cost effective manner.
8. Work with our Fundraising Team to keep them up to date with the latest progress on our training programmes, providing qualitative and quantitative evidence to share with charity funders.
9. Attend monthly Innovation days to develop recipes and other resources, and support the Transformation team with delivery when required.
10. Support and work with the School Engagement Manager to ensure School Chef Educator Programme cohorts are filled.
11. Assist in the delivery of events outside of the SCE programme, including membership meetings, fundraising events, networking and wider organisational events.

Essential skills & experience include:

1. Strong written and verbal communication skills and the ability to create clear, engaging, and accessible online learning resources.
2. Great people skills to quickly build rapport with learners from a wide variety of backgrounds and skill levels - striking a balance between being supportive and challenging.
3. Excellent digital skills in order to manage participants' online progress and records.
4. Excellent presentation skills to deliver engaging in-person and live online training sessions.
5. Excellent organisation, scheduling and time management skills.
6. Some experience working in a catering or kitchen environment, ability to assist or lead the culinary training elements of the training programme.
7. Food Hygiene level 2 or 3.

Desirable skills and experience include:

1. Experience in delivering well-structured and impactful in-person and online training sessions to a kitchen workforce or adult learners.
2. An understanding of the challenges and opportunities to working in school food and school catering work environments.
3. An understanding of hospitality, especially on how to deliver quality food and service within a budget.
4. Experience delivering multiple online training programmes across different geographical areas.
5. A full UK driving licence.

Benefits:

You would be joining a friendly, supportive team that works hard but believes in a healthy work/life balance. 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, with 3 additional office closure days over the Christmas period, 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 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 will invite candidates to interview based on their answers to a series of questions that are related to their day-to-day job. Please follow the Redirect to Recruiter link to answer the questions and submit your application along with your CV.

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

Your answers will go through our sift 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. Successful candidates will be invited to interview. Candidates getting through to a second interview will be asked to complete a task as below.

Expected duration of this application process: 4-6 weeks

Interview Dates:

1st Stage Interviews (30 minutes online): Interviews will take place on 9th May 2025 and will last 30 minutes.

2nd Stage Interview (in-person): Interviews will take place on 30th May 2025 and will include a 45-minute interview and a 15-minute presentation or training exercise on the topic of Good School Food Culture or Expanding Tastebuds.

Location: Chefs in Schools Offices, International House, 3Space, 6 Canterbury Cres, London SW9 7QD

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.