Subscribe our Weekly Newsletter
Head of Teaching & Learning- The Hummingbird Collective
Organization: Ayang Trust/ The Hummingbird School
Apply By: 20 Aug 2026
Location: Guwahati(Assam)
THE HUMMINGBIRD COLLECTIVE · AN AYANG TRUST INITIATIVE Head of Teaching & Learning Senior Academic Role · Full-Time · Guwahati / Field-Based · Immediate Opening Teaching changes one child. The right systems change thousands. We have spent a decade learning what it takes for a child in rural Assam or Arunachal Pradesh to genuinely flourish. Not just pass an exam. Not just complete school. But grow into someone who can lead, shape, and serve the world around them — and who has a real pathway from their classroom to a life of meaning and agency. That is what we are building. Access to a pathway from classroom to career for Northeast India's most marginalised children. The Hummingbird Collective exists because we believe that is possible, and because we have seen enough to know it does not happen by accident. What we have learned is this: the quality of teaching - who the teachers are, what they believe, what they are capable of, their relationship with children - determines almost everything. And the quality of teaching is not fixed - teachers are people who can learn and grow. It is built — through the right systems, the right culture, and the right people who know how to develop other people. The Hummingbird Collective now works across three distinct educational contexts. Two Hummingbird Schools which we run directly. A partnership reaching over 200 government schools where we work within systems we do not control. And a youth programme, housed in a community resource centre, working with young people navigating the years between school and adulthood. Each context is different. The academic questions each one raises are different. We need someone who finds that variety energising rather than fragmenting — and who can hold a coherent vision of learning and teaching across all three. That is why this role exists. The role This is a role for someone who has spent years thinking deeply about how children learn and how teachers grow — and who is now ready to design those answers at scale, across genuinely different contexts. The Head of Teaching & Learning is the intellectual and pedagogical core of The Hummingbird Collective. You own our academic philosophy in practice — what it means to teach well in our schools, how we develop teachers and facilitators across our programmes, how we design curriculum that is both contextually alive and academically rigorous, and how we build a culture of learning and inquiry that survives scale. This role reports to the Director of Programmes & Partnerships and works in close partnership with them — one holding the operational infrastructure, the other the academic soul. The Executive Director, increasingly focused on strategy and fundraising, has deliberately created space for these two roles to lead from the front. Between the Director, the Head of Teaching & Learning, and the school leads, the day-to-day shape of The Hummingbird Collective's next decade will be determined. You will not be working from a distance. You will be in classrooms, in training rooms, in community meetings, and in the data. The frameworks you build must work in a Hummingbird School in Arunachal Pradesh, in a government school in rural Assam, and in a youth resource centre in Majuli. That breadth is the job. Three contexts. One academic vision. Understanding what you are stepping into matters before anything else. The Hummingbird Schools Two schools — Majuli and Arunachal Pradesh — where we have autonomy over culture, curriculum, and teaching practice. Majuli is a decade old with established systems. Arunachal is newer and still finding its shape. Both need academic stewardship, not management. The Government School Partnership Over 200 government primary schools across Assam, running a library and oral language development initiative in partnership with Tata Trusts. We work within the system here, not outside it. The academic design challenge is different - what support actually creates enduring impact when you cannot control the environment? The Youth Programme A new initiative with Azim Premji Foundation, working with young people through a Youth Resource Centre. This is early-stage and will need academic design thinking from the ground up. What does meaningful learning and engagement look like for youth who are past school age, many of them drop outs, and still finding their footing? What you'll be responsible for Teacher & facilitator development (30%) This is the most important thing you will do. The quality of our teachers and facilitators determines the quality of everything else. Design and own the teacher development architecture across all three contexts — induction, ongoing professional development, and leadership pathways. Build training systems that are rigorous enough to shift practice and scalable enough to reach facilitators across multiple sites without losing depth. Develop the coaching capacity of academic leads and programme leads — so that good coaching is not dependent on you being in the room. For the government school project specifically: design training for facilitators that works within the constraints of a system you do not control, and still moves the needle for the children we work with. Curriculum & academic design (20%) Three contexts, three different design challenges. The connective tissue is a shared philosophy about what learning is for. Own and evolve The Hummingbird Collective's academic philosophy — and translate it into practice across different school levels, geographies, and programme types. Anchor curriculum design for Hummingbird Schools, including the senior secondary programme opening within the year. We are looking to onboard a consultant with senior secondary experience to support you in this. Design the academic framework for the youth programme — what learning looks like in a resource centre context. Ensure all curriculum is contextually grounded — the cultural, linguistic, and ecological realities of Assam and Arunachal Pradesh are the foundation. Coaching & direct academic support (20%) You stay close to the work. Not as a visitor but as a practitioner who never fully left the classroom. Conduct regular observations across all three contexts — Hummingbird Schools, government school visits, youth programme sessions. Provide direct coaching to teachers, facilitators, and academic leads — with a practitioner's eye and a coach's ear, not an evaluator's clipboard. Step into a classroom or a session when the moment calls for it. Model. Demonstrate. Teach. Be the thinking partner that school heads and programme leads turn to when the academic questions get hard. Research, monitoring & learning (15%) Three contexts also means three sets of questions worth answering. We want to understand our own work rigorously — not to produce reports, but to get better. Develop a research and learning agenda across the Collective — what are we genuinely trying to understand about teaching, learning, and teacher development in our contexts? Build monitoring systems that track what actually matters — learning outcomes, teaching quality, programme fidelity — and generate insight, not compliance data. You will have the support of a dedicated Tech & Monitoring Associate in this. Engage with the broader education research community. Stay current. Contribute. Identify partnerships where they add real value. Document and communicate The Hummingbird Collective's approach — for internal learning, for donors, and for the wider field. Community engagement (10%) Our academic design is only as good as its relationship with the communities it serves. This is not a courtesy visit. It is a design input. Maintain genuine, regular connection with parents and community members across our geographies. Listen to what communities want for their children — and let that reshape how we think, not just what we say. Help communities understand and trust our approach to education — in language that is honest, accessible, and respectful of their own knowledge. New programmes & schools (5%) Episodic but significant when it happens. New schools and programmes need academic architecture before they open. Design the academic foundations of the senior secondary school — philosophy, curriculum, assessment approach, teacher profile. Contribute to the academic design of future Hummingbird Schools as we expand. The kind of person who thrives here A teacher's heart, always. You came to this work because you believe something about children and learning that you cannot quite leave behind. Even now, in a senior role, you enter a classroom and feel that quiet pull — noticing what is happening, what a child needs, what a teacher is reaching for. Teaching is not something you did before this job. It is something that informs everything about how you do this job. In practice: You walk into a classroom observation and within minutes you know what is working, what is not, and exactly what you will say to the teacher afterwards — not as a critique but as a conversation. Rigorous yet genuinely open and curious. You hold strong views about education, learning, and what children deserve — and you can defend them clearly. You are also genuinely open to being wrong, to learning from the field, and to letting community and context reshape your thinking. The best practitioners we know hold both deep conviction and deep curiosity. We are looking for that combination. No work is beneath you. You are someone for whom no task, no location, and no person is beneath your full engagement. If the school needs cleaning before a parent meeting, you clean. If the community meeting needs setting up, you set it up. This is not a performance of values — it is values in action. It is the culture of The Hummingbird Collective and we intend to keep it regardless of how large we grow. In practice: You arrive at a school for a classroom observation and find the space is not ready. You get to work preparing it, alongside whoever is around. The observation happens on time. Comfortable with remoteness. Our schools and programmes are in Majuli, in Arunachal Pradesh, in 200 government schools across rural Assam. You must be genuinely — not performatively — comfortable in these places. Long journeys on difficult roads, extended time away from urban infrastructure, full presence in remote communities. These are features of this role, not inconveniences to tolerate. You care about dignity. The way you treat people does not change depending on their designation. Children. Teachers. Support staff. Parents. Government officials. Everyone deserves dignity. That belief shapes how you lead. Experience We care more about the coherence of your journey than the length of it. You will likely bring: Meaningful time in direct classroom teaching — at least 2 years. This is the one thing we will not compromise on. We need someone who has stood in front of children and knows what that asks of a person. A track record of moving between contexts — classrooms, training rooms, institutions, communities — and leading thoughtfully at each level. Demonstrated experience in curriculum design, teacher development, or academic programme design, at school and/or system level. Experience designing and facilitating training for teachers or facilitators, and the judgement to know when a training design is actually working. Experience across more than one educational context — formal schools, government partnerships, non-formal or community settings. We are not a single context organisation and we need someone who is not either. Familiarity with the Indian government education system — SSA/SAMAGRA SHIKSHA, the realities of government school classrooms — is a significant advantage. Prior experience in rural or remote geographies, particularly Northeast India, is strongly preferred. A degree in Education or a closely related field. A postgraduate qualification is an advantage, though never a substitute for the quality of your experience. Experience in research, monitoring, or learning design is valued. Practical details
Applications reviewed on a rolling basis. We encourage you to apply early. If this resonates... Send us your CV. Along with it, we would love a letter that tells us something true. Tell us about a child or a teacher you worked with who changed how you think. Tell us about something you designed that actually worked and how you know it worked. Tell us why this role, in this place, at this point in your life feels worth saying yes to. You are also welcome to share a short video — around 5 minutes — as an additional way to introduce yourself. Upload it as an unlisted YouTube video or similar and share the link with us. AI is welcome as a thought partner, and to be honest, we had quite a bit of help from an AI in drafting this to a form that is true to our imagination of this role. We hope, however, that your judgement, curiosity and voice remain unmistakably your own. We are an equal opportunity employer. We strongly encourage applications from candidates with roots in or deep familiarity with Northeast India and from those who have experience living and working alongside underserved communities. Ready to join us? Apply here.
.jpeg)
.jpeg)
Latest Fellowships
Latest Grants
Latest News
© Renalysis Consultants Pvt Ltd