Communications Associate

About Global Schools Forum  

Since our establishment in 2017, we’ve grown our community to over 140 organisations spanning over 60 countries, collectively running or supporting over 400,000 schools and providing education to 37 million children. Our community comprises standalone schools, such as MAIA Impact working with Mayan girls in Guatemala; school networks working within or across countries, including organisations like Hippocampus working in India or United World Schools working in Cambodia, Myanmar, Nepal and Madagascar; and organisations providing core support services to non-state schools, such as EdPartners Africa that provides financial services to schools in Kenya or Instill Education that provides a variety of teacher development offers across Africa.  

GSF’s strategy currently covers three core areas:

Strengthening and growing a global, interconnected learning community. We are continuously expanding our community of mission-aligned, non-state organisations across Asia, Africa, and South America. We provide opportunities for our community of leaders to collaborate and learn from each other as they confront shared operational and pedagogical challenges. Based on the needs and challenges of the community, we curate an annual programme of events and communities of practice. 

Testing promising solutions and diffusing evidence. We fund and support education entrepreneurs to develop, test and scale promising education approaches. We generate and share evidence on ‘what works’ in education and what makes organisations more effective. 

Partnering strategically to shape policy and scale solutions. We enable our community to engage in the strengthening of education systems by engaging in global policy processes, and with support in forging partnerships with other organisations, funders, and policymakers. 

We are a small, fully-remote global team with colleagues based in the UK and across Africa, Asia and Latin America, reflecting the communities in which we work. 

 Our values guide everything we do as a team, as a global community and in our engagements with partners, funders and the global education community: 

• Collaboration: We leverage each other's strengths and knowledge to drive and amplify purpose driven collective action. 

• Intentional Inclusivity: We cultivate and celebrate diversity of backgrounds, culture, perspectives, and approaches promoting inclusivity and mutual respect. 

• Continuous Improvement: We commit to continuously learning, improving, and innovating, while sharing best practices and failures. 

• Honesty and Transparency: We conduct ourselves with integrity, openness, accountability and kindness. 

Communications Associate 

Role Purpose 

Join Global Schools Forum (GSF) as a Communications Associate and help us communicate our mission to improve educational outcomes for children in low- and middle-income countries. GSF is a remote-first, global education organisation, dedicated to improving educational outcomes for children across the globe. We are seeking a talented and passionate Communications Associate to join our small team to help us communicate our exciting and diverse annual calendar of projects that support this change. 

This is a newly created role which reflects the increase in the scale and ambition of our communications activities. You will play a crucial role in planning, crafting, and disseminating compelling content to showcase our varied annual programme of work. Working closely with the Communications Manager and collaborating with the whole GSF team, the Communications Associate will plan, produce, and deliver engaging social media content including caption copy and graphic design; brief and manage the production of multimedia content, including audio and video; manage the end-to-end newsletter production process for our fortnightly member newsletter Snapshot, and bi-monthly stakeholder newsletter; lead on content scheduling and forward planning; copyedit others content; and support with website content management. 

The role would suit candidates with previous experience working in journalism, social media, or communications roles at charities, NGOs, private sector, or creative agency environments. If you are a creative communicator with a passion for education, we are keen to hear from you. 

Responsibilities 

Communications & Strategic Planning 

• Engaging with GSF’s strategic priorities and embedding these across all comms activities 

• Producing comms deliverables that reflect and align with GSF brand effectively  

• Owning and maintaining the content planning and social media scheduling/calendars 

• Collaborating internally with team, and externally with suppliers, on production of comms deliverables including reports, toolkits, events, video, and other products  

Newsletter Production 

• Writing copy for the fortnightly member newsletter Snapshot, bi-monthly Stakeholder newsletter, and one-shots, and leading the end-to-end newsletter production cycle.  

• Collaborating with GSF team to collate, produce and sign off on newsletter content  

Copywriting and Website Content Management  

• Writing a variety of content for the website including blogs and news articles 

• Sourcing images and creating blog/article content for our website and other channels 

• Regularly updating the website including adding events, jobs, and members via the CMS 

• Ensuring a high quality, on brand visual aesthetic across the whole site 

• Writing with search and audience in mind, ensuring our content is optimised for SEO 

Social media copywriting and scheduling 

• Leading on GSF’s LinkedIn, X and YouTube accounts ensuring content is regularly updated, on brand and communicating GSF core messages effectively 

• Planning, producing and executing all social media content including end-to-end caption copy, tagging and scheduling 

• Handling content requirements and requests from team members across GSF 

• Managing paid and sponsored social media posts including audience and location targeting.  

Social media graphic design  

• Designing social media posts in line with GSF brand guidelines using Canva 

• Researching and sourcing high quality photography for project creative  

• Coordinating with team on event social including event topic, speakers, images, dates and times and liaising internally with team for sign off on creative. 

Video & audio content creation 

• Identifying and forward planning campaigns and content for global theme/ International Days and events  

• Collaborating with GSF community and team to brief and secure video and audio content to support comms activity  

Requirements

Person Specification   

• Exceptional English Writing and Editing: You have excellent writing and editing skills in English and can produce clear, concise, and adaptable content on complex topics related to education for a variety of audiences.   

• Creative Vision: You are creative with a good visual eye, and experience using design tools like Canva to create visually appealing content. 

• Social Media Expertise: You possess a deep understanding of social media platforms, with proven ability to create engaging and shareable content. 

• Digital Dexterity: You will be proficient in content management systems, website platforms and digital analytics, and with the Microsoft 365 suite and other tools that make remote work possible . 

• Attention-to-detail: You’ll be someone who prides yourself on getting the details right, with experience of managing high-volume workloads, without compromising on quality and accuracy.  

• Planning and organising: You’ll have strong planning and time management skills with the ability to effectively manage multiple priorities and stakeholders.   

• Proactivity and solution orientation: You’ll be a self-starter, able to work independently and show initiative in identifying areas for improvement and implementing solutions.   

• Relationship oriented: You will have strong communication and interpersonal skills, including the ability to build strong working relationships with a wide range of people within and beyond the GSF team. 

• Flexibility: You’ll be comfortable working in a young, fully remote organisation. You’ll be quick to adapt to changes in priorities and tasks and willing to learn new skills and take on additional responsibilities. 

• Collaborative team player: You value others’ ideas, skills, perspectives and contributions and work actively to share ideas and support with colleagues . 

• Commitment to continuous improvement: You are committed to actively developing and sharing your knowledge and skills, to seeking and applying feedback and to sharing feedback with others.   

• Honesty and transparency: You share information and updates in a clear and transparent way, when things are going to plan and when they aren’t.  

• Intentionally inclusive: You are committed to understanding, respecting and collaborating with colleagues from a wide range of backgrounds and experience levels.  

• Passion and motivation: You’ll be passionate about education and making a difference, with a strong work ethic and willingness to get stuck in. 

Terms and Conditions 

• Salary: Competitive within UK not for profit sector, adjusted based on location and experience. 
• Contract: Two-year fixed term with expectation of extension. Consultancy agreements will be considered for candidates not based in the UK, where GSF is currently headquartered. 
• Hours: Full Time, typically 9-5 in your time zone but with significant flexibility. Given that we work across different time zones, some non-traditional hours for early or late calls may be required. 
• Location: We are a fully remote organisation. We welcome applications from anywhere in the world, with a preference for a time zone between GMT-2 to GMT+5:30. Local work authorisation is required. Some international travel may be required. 
• Responsible to: Communications Manager. 
• Start Date: We would like the successful candidate to start as soon as possible, subject to any notice periods. 

Benefits

• 35 fully flexible holiday days (including flexible bank holidays) 

• Flexible working - work from home or at a location that suits you and at the times that work best for you 

• Co-working space allowance 

• Personal learning and development budget 

• Access to GSF events  

• Access to Learning Platform iHasco 

• Annual team retreat 

• Employee pension scheme (only available to UK employees at present)

How to Apply  

Application deadline: 9am BST, Wednesday, 23 October 

Interview Dates:  

1st interview w/c 4th November 

2nd Interview w/c 25th November 

To apply for this role, we ask all candidates to: 

1. Apply through the job portal link here  https://apply.workable.com/j/AB5CE2E017 

1. Upload your CV; 

1. Respond to the two-part application task below; 

 

Application Tasks: 

1. Please write a blog of 800 words for the Global Schools Forum website on the importance of networks, coalitions and partnerships to achieve better education outcomes in the global south. Include a headline, subheader, copy, suggested quote from an organisation or person outside of GSF, and refer to a resource and project/programme from our website that might be helpful to support your headline/blog idea.   

2. In 300 words, tell us what excited you most about Global Schools Forum and why your skills and experience make you a great fit for this role in particular. 

We recognise that artificial intelligence (AI) such as 'ChatGPT' etc can be useful for applicants e.g. to shorten an initial draft and we are open to applicants utilising these tools in their application and in their roles at GSF. However we would caution applicants not to rely too much on AI in drafting answers to application questions. We want to hear your authentic voice, and for the second part of the task in particular we will be looking for answers that use examples and experiences that are specific to you.   

Please note - we will not consider applications unless they include a CV, response to application tasks 1 and 2, and have been submitted through our application portal.

If you have any questions about the application process or the role, please contact us at [email protected] (recruiters will be politely turned away). 

If you apply, we will process your personal data for recruitment purposes only and in accordance with our Data Privacy Policy. 

GSF is committed to cultivating a fair and inclusive workplace, where everyone can be themselves and thrive. We welcome applications from everyone regardless of race, age, disability, gender, ethnicity, sexual orientation or faith. 

If this role isn't quite right for you but you like the idea of working at GSF, please submit your CV to stay in our talent pool and be the first to hear about new opportunities in future  GSF Workable