Virtual School Personal Education Plan Coordinator

The Service and Team

Cornwall Virtual School (Awena) for Children in Care is seeking an additional Personal Education Plan (PEP) Coordinator to join our established PEP team. This role will work alongside an existing PEP Coordinator, with a particular focus on Pupil Premium Plus (PPP) administration and finance processes, alongside core PEP coordination duties.

This is a key role supporting schools, education providers and internal teams to ensure high‑quality PEPs, effective use of PPP funding, and strong educational outcomes for children and young people in care.

This role requires managing highly sensitive and confidential information relating to children in care, and the needs of this vulnerable cohort; adhering to data protection legislation is of paramount importance.

The Role

As one of two PEP Coordinators within the Virtual School, you will:

• Coordinate Personal Education Plans (PEPs), ensuring statutory timescales and quality standards are met
• Work collaboratively with the other PEP Coordinator and wider Virtual School team
• Support and challenge Designated Teachers and social workers to produce aspirational, outcome‑focused PEPs
• Use electronic PEP systems and data to track compliance and performance

In addition, you will play a central role in the administration, monitoring and processing of Pupil Premium Plus (PPP) and Virtual School funding, including:

• Liaising with education providers and CSF Finance to obtain BACS details and support the supplier set‑up process, maintaining a database to support future payment requests
• Creating and maintaining PPP approval trackers for each financial year, including summary reports of category expenditure across the year
• Managing regular BACS and journal payment requests to relevant finance departments to ensure the timely delivery of PPP agreed through PEPs, and maintaining an up‑to‑date list of maintained schools
• Managing termly bulk payment requests for Pupil Premium Plus
• Maintaining accurate and up‑to‑date records of all payment requests for Pupil Premium Plus
• Responding to school payment queries, either directly or via First Point, Education Early Years Finance or Social Care colleagues
• Liaising with finance teams to raise invoices where required to reclaim Pupil Premium Plus funding

This role requires strong organisation, attention to detail and the ability to work confidently with finance systems and professionals.

This is a public/customer-facing role, where the statutory English language requirement for public sector workers applies. 

This position will be subject to a enhanced criminal record disclosure check.

Working Pattern:

This is a 37 hour per week, fixed term contract for 12 months. 

What You’ll Need to Succeed

We are looking for someone who:

• Has experience working in education, children’s services or a related field
• Understands the educational needs and statutory framework for children in care
• Has experience of coordinating plans, funding or payments within a local authority, school or similar setting
• Is confident working with financial data, trackers, spreadsheets and electronic systems
• Can communicate clearly and professionally with schools, finance teams and internal partners
• Is organised, proactive and able to manage competing priorities
• Demonstrates a strong commitment to safeguarding, equality and inclusion

Experience of Pupil Premium / Pupil Premium Plus, local authority finance systems or Virtual School work would be advantageous, but training will be provided.

Please read the role profile for the full details of this role attached below in this advert

What you’ll get in return:

Cornwall Council’s ambition is to be an employer of choice, a high performing Council and a learning organisation. We commit to providing a reward and benefits package to attract, motivate and reward our employees. We offer a range of flexible working options to our staff. This helps provide our employees with a greater work/life balance. Whilst still ensuring that service needs are met.

Our core employee rewards and benefits include:

·         a competitive salary.

·         a defined benefit pension scheme, based on your career average earnings. This includes the option for extra voluntary contributions

·         a generous annual leave entitlement with the potential to purchase additional leave.

·         A national award-winning employee health and wellbeing programme

·         Employee benefits scheme giving employees access to a wide range of discounts to local and national goods and services.

Additional Information:

Cornwall Council is unable to offer visa sponsorship or transfer existing sponsorship for this role.

The full role profile is attached here

We recommend saving a copy of this to refer to if you are invited to an interview.

For more information or an informal chat about the role please contact Sarah Hamshaw – sarah.hamshaw@cornwall.gov.uk 

Application Process

Please attach a supporting statement to your application, you can add your Education & Qualifications details manually using the application form timeline or you can upload your CV. Remember to demonstrate why you are suitable against each of the points marked as ‘Application’ on the Role Profile using examples from your experience or transferable skills. This might be through qualifications or descriptive examples from your work / personal experience, which clearly illustrates what you did and the effect it had. Guidance on how to complete your application can be found here – The application process.

Please note that applications cannot be edited after they have been submitted, please contact careers@cornwall.gov.uk if you have any queries or require assistance with your application.

Existing employees must apply using their Cornwall Council email address through the Opportunity Marketplace on Oracle.

Cornwall Council deliver services to more than half a million local people and over five million visitors a year. Working here - Cornwall Council

We are happy to talk about flexible working options such as part-time or compressed hours. More examples of our flexible working opportunities can be found here - flexible working options.

Fairness and inclusion are at the heart of our vision for Cornwall. In order to best serve our communities, we are striving to achieve a diverse workforce that is inclusive of all backgrounds, cultures and identities; e.g., race, disability, sex, gender reassignment status, age, religion and sexual orientation. We are an equal opportunities and Disability Confident employer, and we will assess applicants on their merits.

Cornwall Council is committed to safeguarding and following safer recruitment principles to help make sure our staff and volunteers are suitable to work with children, young people and adults at risk. It’s a vital part of creating a safe and positive environment and making a commitment to keeping all service users safe from harm.