The Grounds & Gardens Department
The Grounds team are responsible for the day-to-day management of the sports grounds, preparing pitches for the pupils, old boys of the College, and other external users. The department consists of five grounds staff and five gardeners. The Head Groundsman is responsible for the department and reports to the Estate Bursar who is the Head of Department.
The department is based in Kingsgate Road and maintains a wide variety of sports facilities to a very high standard, including football pitches, cricket squares, grass tennis courts and various artificial surfaces. In addition, the College campus covers many acres of land including fine mown areas, ornamental gardens and lawns, gardens within the boarding houses, and water meadows.
Desirable Qualifications and Personal Qualities
•Enthusiastic & hardworking
• Some practical experience of working in grounds maintenance
•A willingness to learn and develop personal skills
• The ability to work as part of a team or on their own
•Physically capable of undertaking the work required
• Be energetic and communicate well
•Able to work in a safe manner following health and safety
regulations
Terms of service
Start date
It is hoped that the successful candidate will be able to start as soon as possible subject to any notice period due to a current employer.
Salary
Circa £23,800 (gross) per annum.
Salary levels are reviewed annually on 1 September and this salary will next be reviewed in September 2021.
Hours of work
Hours of work vary according to the time of year with the late spring and summer months being the busiest period. An average of 40 hours per week are worked over the year.
Spring and summer
1st April – 31st August
Monday to Friday: 7:30am – 4:30pm
Autumn and winter1st September – 31st March
Monday to Friday: 8:00am – 4.30pm
In addition, some weekend and evening hours to cover sporting fixtures, as deemed necessary by the Head Groundsman, worked on a rota basis.
Holidays
The College leave year runs from 1st September to 31st August. The Groundsperson will be entitled to the statutory number of days leave pro rata per annum; any Public or Bank Holiday falling in term-time is deemed to be a normal working day. All holiday must be taken outside of the school term.
Pension and Life Cover
On employment, employees will be auto-enrolled into the College’s pension scheme according to legislative thresholds. Those who are not eligible for auto-enrolment may still elect to join the College’s pension scheme. Initially, when joining the College’s pension scheme, employees will become a member of the College’s Group Personal Pension Plan (GPP). For this Plan, known as Tier 1, the employee contributes 5% and the employer 3%.
After nine months’ membership of the Tier 1 plan employees may opt to join Tier 2, which is also a Group Personal Pension Plan and the contributions are 5% from the employee and a 9% contribution from the College. Employees in Tier 1 automatically qualify for a Life Cover of 2 times salary. On entry to Tier 2 Life Cover changes to 4 times salary.
Probation and Notice Periods
The first four months of employment will be a probationary period. During this time conduct and performance will be reviewed. The College may extend the probationary period if it is deemed to be required. During the probationary period the notice required to terminate employment will be one week (by either the employee or employer). The notice will increase upon the successful completion of the probationary period.
Enhanced Disclosure and other Pre-employment checks
Winchester College is committed to safeguarding the welfare of children at the school. Therefore, this appointment will be subject to a successful Enhanced Disclosure and Barring check. This will provide details of convictions, reprimands, warnings, cautions and bind overs as per the DBS filtering guidance. A policy on the recruitment of ex-offenders, and information about DBS filtering, is available upon request from the HR Department if required. The college may approach previous employers to seek relevant experience or qualifications, in addition to obtaining references provided by the candidate.
Data Protection
Winchester College collects and processes relevant personal data as part of its everyday operations and is obliged to process it in accordance with the Data Protection Act 2018. The school is the Data Controller of this data under the Act and is registered with the Information Commissioner’s Office; its registration number is Z5751669. Any queries about this policy or how personal data is processed by the school should be referred to the Data Protection Liaison Officer.