Online Educator (INTERNAL ONLY)

About Nudge Education Online

Nudge Education Online (NEO) is a fully online alternative provision for learners aged 11 to 18, launching in September 2026 under Nudge Education Ltd. It is built for young people who have been unable to access mainstream education — learners experiencing EBSNA, SEMH difficulties, the effects of adverse experiences, or whose neurodivergent profiles have never been properly met.

NEO offers full-time placements, short-term and transitional placements, and catch-up tuition. The first intakes in September 2026 are a Year 9 and a Year 10 cohort. Teaching is delivered by Qualified Educators and routes towards Pearson Edexcel International GCSEs, with Practitioner-Mentors alongside each learner as their consistent point of contact. Pedagogy rests on the six Cornerstones — Connection, Movement, Creativity, Reflection, Rest and Nutrition. NEO is pursuing OEAS accreditation.

NEO operates as its own region within Nudge Education — every function the wider business runs, run again in the cloud, without the geographic constraints of in-person provision.

Why this role exists

Live teaching is the heart of NEO. A relational model and a well-designed curriculum only become real in the lesson itself — in a qualified, subject-specialist teacher who can hold a small group of learners who have often found school overwhelming, and teach them well, online, towards real qualifications.

The Online Educator is that person. You deliver NEO's live lessons in your subject: pitched, paced and adapted for learners who may be anxious, disengaged, or carrying gaps — and who need the lesson to feel safe before it can feel like learning. It is skilled, demanding work, and it is the work everything else at NEO is built to support.

What the role does

Live teaching and learning

• Deliver live online lessons in your subject via Google Meet to small, deliberately small groups, on a camera-optional basis, so every learner is seen, heard and known.
• Teach towards Pearson Edexcel International GCSEs with modular assessment, and towards Functional Skills, ASDAN or Discovery Phase work where that is the right route for a learner.
• Pitch, check understanding and adapt in the moment for a mixed group, using the tools online teaching gives you — chat, polls, shared whiteboards, breakout spaces — to draw learners in rather than put them on the spot.

Planning, assessment and progress

• Plan and teach against the exam specification and NEO's schemes of work, adapting resources for varied starting points and access needs.
• Set and mark low-stakes, modular assessment, give clear feedback, and keep an accurate picture of each learner's progress in your subject.
• Contribute to curriculum and resource development under the Head of Teaching & Learning as the offer grows.

Adaptive, relational practice

• Teach in a way that puts connection before curriculum — relationship-first, low-pressure, and alert to the Cornerstones woven through the week.
• Use adaptive, trauma-informed approaches for learners with EBSNA, SEMH needs, SEND or complex school histories, in step with the SENCo's guidance and each learner's plan.
• Hold the norms that make an online room safe to join — camera-optional, voice-optional, every contribution welcome — so a quiet learner is never assumed to be an absent one.

Working with the team

• Keep your teaching and feedback joined up with the Practitioner-Mentor who holds each learner's pastoral relationship, so a family hears one consistent voice.
• Share the learner picture with the SENCo, the Head of Teaching & Learning and fellow Educators, and take part in the agreed teaching and standardisation rhythms.

Safeguarding in the live classroom

• Stay alert in every lesson, and report any safeguarding concern to the Designated Safeguarding Lead immediately and in full — you support safeguarding, you do not lead it.
• Teach safely online: appropriate spaces, managed chat, no unplanned one-to-one contact, and care with links, screen-sharing and recordings.

Boundaries of the role

The credibility of this role depends on being clear about what it is and is not.

• This is a teaching role, not a pastoral case-holding role. The Practitioner-Mentor remains each learner's named relational and pastoral point of contact; the Online Educator focuses on subject teaching, assessment and progress.
• This role does not hold Designated Safeguarding Lead or deputy DSL responsibility. Like every member of staff, the postholder reports any concern to the DSL immediately and in full, and does not attempt to resolve concerns alone.
• Lesson recordings are made for safeguarding and teacher-training purposes only. They are never shared with stakeholders — not even short clips; only transcripts may appear in summaries or reports.
• This is a sessional teaching role within the Flexible Educator pool and does not carry line-management of other staff unless separately agreed.

Status and terms

This is offered as sessional, flexible teaching for existing Nudge colleagues only, alongside your substantive role — not a transfer or a promotion. NEO is a new and as-yet unproven provision: this is an opportunity to help establish and prove it, teaching the learners at the centre of it.

Paid teaching hours are agreed with the Hiring Manager and paid at a sessional rate per paid hour covering teaching and preparation. Hours are expected to start modest and grow as the provision grows. Your substantive role, terms and return arrangements are unaffected. As NEO scales, there will be scope to take on more hours, additional subjects or key stages, or a fuller role, considered on that basis as the provision proves out.

You can find the job description with additional information on the role here.