School Receptionist / Administrator

LANCING COLLEGE; Cootham; On-site; GBP 20,000 - 25,000; Full time

Job summary

A prestigious educational institution seeks a Receptionist to welcome visitors and manage communications. The ideal candidate should have experience in a similar role and possess excellent communication skills. Responsibilities include maintaining a professional reception area, assisting the HR team with compliance checks, and monitoring pupil attendance. Familiarity with Microsoft Office is essential. This role is located in Cootham, England, offering a vibrant environment.

Qualifications

• Previous experience working in a school or similar environment.
• Experience operating a telephone switchboard.
• Ability to manage deadlines and prioritize workload.

Responsibilities

• Welcome visitors and issue visitor passes.
• Answer telephone calls and route accurately.
• Maintain a professional reception environment.
• Assist HR with compliance checks and administration.
• Monitor pupil attendance and update records.

Skills

Verbal communication

Written communication

Multi-tasking

Warm engagement with stakeholders

Tools

Microsoft Office

Job description

Responsibilities

• To welcome all visitors to the College, identifying the appropriate host, and announce the arrival of their guest, ensuring that all visitors are issued with a visitor's pass. These must be strictly controlled to minimise unauthorised access to the site.
• To answer incoming telephone calls and accurately route to the appropriate recipient or respond to / resolve general queries. The post-holder will also be responsible for accessing and dealing with all voicemail messages, either through passing on a message or resolving at first point of contact.
• To promote and maintain a professional, safe, tidy and presentable environment, ensuring that the Reception area always adheres to the required standards to ensure we maintain our reputation as one of the most beautiful schools in West Sussex.
• To maintain security standards and report any faults to the appropriate person.
• To assist the Human Resources (HR) team with compliance checks for all sites, including the Childcare Disqualification forms and completing the mandatory online checks for each candidate (KCSIE 2025), ensuring all forms are returned in a timely manner any non-compliance issues or concerns are escalated to the HR Manager.
• To support the HR team with any general administrative duties that may be asked of you.
• To oversee new staff ID in conjunction with HR and Security, ensuring the VLE staff database is kept up to date.
• To update Phone Link with new staff/leavers as advised by HR.
• To record all daily pupil sickness absence, late and unauthorised absences, ensuring the relevant registers are maintained in accordance with the Registration policy.
• To follow up pupil absences to determine the reasons for absence, updating the daily absence lists on the VLE, advise Housemistress/Housemaster (HMM) and Senior Deputy Head and update iSAMS.
• To update 'permission to drink alcohol' and 'permission to bring a car to school' list on the VLE, printing lists and giving copies to the Common Room as necessary.
• To process 'leave of absence' forms, emailing students and HMMs and updating iSAMS, spreadsheets and filing forms.
• To monitor co-curricular attendance and send HMMs a daily attendance report.
• To organise student birthday cards for all sites and arranging for them to be distributed.

Qualifications

• Previous experience of working in a school or similar role and environment.
• Previous experience of operating a telephone switchboard.
• Ability to communicate in a warm, engaging manner with staff, pupils, parents and visitors and be an ambassador for the College.
• Ability to adapt with completing deadlines and able to prioritise workload.
• Ability to multi-task during busy periods.
• Excellent verbal and written communication skills.
• A good working knowledge of Microsoft Office products.

Desirable

• Ability to operate in-house systems although training will be provided.