Senior Educational Psychologist

Overview

Are you an experienced Educational Psychologist looking for an opportunity to shape the future of educational psychology practice?

This is an exciting opportunity to join Buckinghamshire's Educational Psychology Service at a time of significant innovation and development. As a Senior Educational Psychologist, you will combine strategic leadership, operational oversight and people management responsibilities, while helping to shape the ongoing development of our ambitious Experts at Hand model.

Alongside your locality leadership responsibilities, you will lead a designated area of strategic development, helping to design, implement and evaluate new approaches to educational psychology delivery. This includes influencing how educational psychology contributes to system-wide improvement across education, health and care, extending our impact beyond traditional school patch working.

Working as part of our SEND Service, you will play a key role in improving outcomes for children and young people aged 0-25 through evidence-informed practice, partnership working and service innovation.

About us

About the Buckinghamshire Educational Psychology Service

Buckinghamshire Educational Psychology Service is a highly regarded team of Educational Psychologists, Trainee Educational Psychologists and Assistant Educational Psychologists committed to improving outcomes for children and young people through consultation, assessment, intervention, research and systems-level work. We are a reflective, supportive and forward-thinking service that values professional autonomy, innovation and continuous learning.

We are currently implementing an ambitious service transformation through our Experts at Hand model. This approach builds upon the strengths of traditional locality working whilst creating greater opportunities for Educational Psychologists to contribute specialist expertise across communities, sectors and strategic priorities. As a result, our Educational Psychologists are increasingly able to work at individual, organisational and system levels, influencing practice across the wider SEND system.

About Experts at Hand

Buckinghamshire's Experts at Hand model builds on the strong foundations of our existing model in which Educational Psychologists have worked in close partnership with schools, Specialist Teachers, Speech and Language Therapists, Occupational Therapists and other professionals to support inclusion and build capacity. Through our School Partnership Teams, Educational Psychologists have developed a strong reputation for collaborative consultation, systems development and solution-focused approaches that help schools meet the needs of children and young people.

Experts at Hand enables us to build on this successful model by creating additional capacity and flexibility in how Educational Psychology expertise is deployed across the system. While School Partnership Teams continue to provide a consistent relationship with schools and settings, the model creates greater opportunities for Educational Psychologists to deliver direct interventions, facilitate organisational change, provide clinical supervision, and lead reflective practice and work discussion groups. This allows us to strengthen both preventative and early intervention support while extending our impact beyond individual casework.

A key feature of the model is the development of specialist Communities of Practice, which bring together Educational Psychologists, practitioners and partner agencies to develop expertise, innovation and system-wide improvement in priority areas. Our current Communities of Practice focus on Early Years, Post-16, Alternative Provision and Specialist Provision, creating opportunities to shape new approaches to partnership working, develop targeted support offers, and influence strategic developments across the county. Senior Educational Psychologists play a central role in this work, helping to design and implement new areas of practice and ensuring that Educational Psychology continues to evolve in response to the needs of Buckinghamshire's children, young people, families and communities.

This role offers a unique opportunity to contribute to and influence the next phase of this development, helping to shape how Educational Psychology supports children, young people and families across the county.

About the role

This is an exciting senior leadership opportunity for an experienced Educational Psychologist who is passionate about driving positive change and shaping the future direction of Educational Psychology practice in Buckinghamshire.

The role combines strategic leadership, people management and direct psychological practice, providing the opportunity to influence service delivery at both operational and county-wide levels. In addition to leading a designated strategic development area, you will play a key role in shaping and embedding the Experts at Hand model, helping to identify and implement new ways that Educational Psychologists can contribute to improved outcomes across the wider system.

Strategic development responsibilities may include designing and implementing new approaches to service delivery, developing partnership arrangements, evaluating impact, leading improvement initiatives, and supporting the development of innovative practice across education, health and social care. Senior Educational Psychologists will have the opportunity to contribute to the evolution of new Communities of Practice and to shape how Educational Psychology expertise is deployed across Buckinghamshire's priority areas.

Alongside these responsibilities, you will provide line management, supervision and professional support to Educational Psychologists, Trainee Educational Psychologists and Assistant Educational Psychologists. You will support the delivery of high-quality early intervention, preventative and statutory services, while contributing to wider SEND improvement activity and service development.

The role also maintains a direct practice element, undertaking consultation, assessment and intervention work with children and young people aged 0-25, including statutory psychological advice as part of Education, Health and Care Needs Assessments.

Key responsibilities include:

• Leading a designated area of strategic development within the Educational Psychology Service.
• Contributing to the design, implementation and ongoing development of the Experts at Hand model.
• Leading and supporting service improvement projects that strengthen the Educational Psychology contribution across education, health and care systems.
• Supervising and supporting Educational Psychologists and Trainee Educational Psychologists.
• Line managing Assistant Educational Psychologists.
• Providing high-quality psychological consultation, assessment and intervention for children and young people aged 0-25.
• Building strong partnerships across education, health and social care to improve outcomes for children, young people and families.
• Contributing to strategic planning, quality assurance and continuous service improvement.
• Representing Educational Psychology within local, regional and national professional networks.

For a full list of duties and responsibilities, please refer to the Job Description.

 Any-Desk:

As an ‘any-desk’ worker, you’ll need to be connected to our network to access digital folders and resources, but this can either be from home or an office location when required. You will be required to work from the office a couple of times a week, depending on your role and team requirements.

About you

We are looking for an accomplished and forward-thinking Educational Psychologist who combines specialist expertise with strong leadership and relationship-building skills. You will be passionate about improving outcomes for children and young people, confident in influencing stakeholders at all levels and motivated to drive service improvement through evidence-based practice.

You will be an excellent communicator, capable of building trusted relationships with children, families, schools, colleagues and partner organisations. With strong organisational skills and the ability to manage competing priorities, you will be comfortable working across both strategic and operational responsibilities. You will also have experience supporting and developing other professionals through supervision, coaching and professional development activities.

To be successful in this role, you will bring:

• Significant experience as an Educational Psychologist, including extensive experience within a specialist area of practice.
• Expert knowledge of educational psychology, SEND legislation, policy and current developments across Children's Services.
• Experience of leading service improvement, developing policies, procedures and best practice.
• A strong track record of multi-agency partnership working and collaborative leadership.
• Experience of managing, supervising and developing professional staff.
• Excellent communication, influencing, report writing and presentation skills.
• The ability to lead strategically while maintaining high-quality professional practice.
• Registration with the Health and Care Professions Council (HCPC) as a Practitioner Psychologist.
• A postgraduate qualification in Educational Psychology accredited by the British Psychological Society (BPS) and approved by the HCPC.
• An honours degree in Psychology (or equivalent qualification conferring Graduate Basis for Chartered Membership of the BPS).
• A commitment to professional standards, continuous improvement and delivering excellent outcomes for children and young people.

If you are looking for a role where you can influence practice, develop others, contribute to service-wide improvement and make a meaningful difference to the lives of children and young people, we would love to hear from you.

We understand that candidates may use AI tools to assist with their applications. While we welcome innovation, we expect all submissions to reflect your own experience, skills, and achievements accurately. Please ensure your application is truthful and demonstrates your personal capabilities, as this will be assessed during the selection process.

Other information

Other Information

For more information about this role, please contact Dr Jenny Feeney at [email protected] for an informal discussion.

Closing date: October 30^th

Interview Date: November 5^th

We reserve the right to close the vacancy once we have received sufficient applications, so please be advised to submit your application as early as possible.

Buckinghamshire Council is committed to safeguarding and promoting the welfare of children, young people and adults at risk.

This post is exempt from the Rehabilitation of Offenders Act 1974 and therefore applicants are required to declare:

• All unspent convictions and conditional cautions
• All spent convictions and adult cautions that are not protected (i.e. that are not filtered out) as defined by the Rehabilitation of Offenders Act 1974 (Exceptions) Order 1975 (as amended in 2020 and 2023).

For further information on filtering please refer to Nacro guidance and the guidance published by the Ministry of Justice (see, in particular, the section titled ‘Exceptions Order’).

Our values

We have a set of values, which our employees have chosen, that represent what we are – Proud, Ambitious, Collaborative and Trustworthy.

By joining Buckinghamshire Council, you can expect:

• a fair and inclusive culture
• the chance to really make a difference to those around you
• health and well-being initiatives including an Employee Assistance Programme, Mental Health First Aiders and mindfulness workshops
• a unified voice through our Employee Representative Group
• ongoing support, and the opportunity to develop and progress in your career with us
• opportunities to take part in fun activities such as fundraising and social events

About the Service Area

Ensuring that all children and young people in Buckinghamshire reach their potential is a primary focus within our Education service. It’s essential that we provide inclusive and life-long learning opportunities for all of our young people - so we look to raise standards, attainment and aspirations in a number of ways. 

We aim to provide the right support at the right time for families requiring non-statutory intervention, as well as quality and timely input to those requiring Education, Health and Care Plans. We want to provide the highest quality early years and school-age educational experiences for children in Buckinghamshire, and strive to continually strengthen the services we deliver in order to achieve this. 

We recognise and reward you

Hard work and success deserves recognition. That’s why we pride ourselves on the benefits we give our people. We actively encourage a good work-life balance and promote flexible and agile working arrangements. We provide discounts on various Cafés, restaurants, shops and auto enrolment onto our generous Pension Scheme. We also offer a salary sacrifice personal car lease scheme and the opportunity to gain membership to Costco. We have discounted gym memberships, Travel discounts with Arriva and Chiltern Railways and much more.

https://jobs.buckinghamshire.gov.uk/working-buckinghamshire-council/