Senior Early Years Practitioner

Role: Ref 11630 – Senior Early Years Practitioner

Location: Exeter, Devon

Salary: Up to £27,200 per annum

Contract/Hours: Permanent Full Time – 40 hours per week 

Closing date: Midnight on 30^th July

Benefits:  

• 25 days annual leave PLUS bank holidays
• 60% discount on childcare within our nurseries and clubs 
• Gain professional qualifications and excellent training/development opportunities 
• Flexible maternity, adoption, and paternity packages 
• Pension with up to 7% employer contribution with included life assurance cover 
• Staff discount portal and Blue Light Card eligibility with 15,000 national retailers’ discounts 
   

We're thrilled that you're considering a career with Spring. Spare us five minutes, and we'll tell you what you need to know… 

  
About Spring

Spring offers award-winning childcare services, as part of the national charity Action for Children. It's our mission to be the best provider of outstanding quality early education to children throughout the UK, that is accessible to all. We are focused on enabling young people to learn, have fun and make friends in our bright, engaging settings. That starts with creating a happy environment for our team.  Join us and you can look forward to: 

• A kind, caring culture with an emphasis on wellbeing, both physical and mental. 
• Flexible working – wherever possible we offer flexibility on hours and/or hybrid working. 
• Lots of opportunities for training, learning, development, including gaining qualifications. 
• Excellent benefits that compare favourably to other employers in our sector. 

About the nursery

Spring Cedars is an established nursery in Exeter with a home from home environment. We cater for 46 children per day, from babies to 4 years with a dedicated and highly qualified team who are passionate about children's well-being. We work together to create a fun learning environment that encourages children to be curious, discover and grow through the provision of natural and open-ended resources.

We are looking to expand our team with the right candidate who will play a vital role in shaping young minds and creating a nurturing environment where our children flourish.

We are looking for someone to join our impassioned and supportive team this is a nursery where career progression is supported and encouraged.

About the role

When you join us, you'll be part of a passionate and creative team committed to giving the highest standards of care and education and helping children to find their feet – making friends, having fun and sparking their imaginations through play.

In the role of Senior Early Years Practitioner, you'll be allowing the children to explore and discover their own creativity, individuality, and imagination within our bright, engaging and safe environments. It goes without saying that you need to love being around children and will have the ambition to make a direct and positive impact on their young lives.

What you’ll be doing   

In the role of Senior Early Years Practitioner, you'll be: 

• Leading the staff within the room on providing learning programmes for individual or groups of children appropriate to their needs and developmental stages in accordance with Early Years legislation and guidance.
• Ensuring the compliance and application of nursery policies and procedures and relevant legislative requirements, informing management immediately of any instances of non-compliance or variations in practices.
• Contributing to and participating in the wider nursery management through leading on specific areas of development within the nursery, as directed by the Nursery Manager.
• Preparing and supervising dedicated areas/rooms within the setting on specific working patterns through planning, monitoring of outcomes, managing ratio of children, and the provision of a stimulating and appropriate range of activities whilst ensuring health and care needs are met.

What we need from you   

In the role of Senior Early Years Practitioner, we're ideally looking for someone who has: 

• Level 3 early years and childcare qualification e.g., NNEB, CACHE, NVQ Level 3 in Childcare and Education.
• A thorough knowledge of children's developmental needs from 0 to 5 years.
• Experience working and leading in an early year setting.
• Strong planning, observation and reflection of children and their learning.
• Effective communication skills across multiple age groups.
• Paediatric First Aid qualification.

Whether this is a career change for you or the next step in your journey, we'd love to hear from you. 

We work together to reach our mission to give children a healthy start in life. 

Good luck! We can't wait to hear from you. 

Contact: If you need support with your application, please contact our Recruitment Team at RecruitmentService@actionforchildren.org.uk quoting the above Reference.

We'll be happy to give you any support you require. 

Diversity, Equality and Inclusion 

At Spring Oscars we're dedicated to building a diverse, inclusive, and authentic workplace. We actively encourage applications from Black, Asian & Minority Ethnic and disabled candidates as they are under-represented within the organisation. We want to take deliberate and purposeful action to ensure equal opportunity to all groups. 

Male staff are often under-represented within this sector, and we would like to encourage more male applicants for our roles. 

We are committed to safer recruitment practices to protect our service users; therefore, all applicants are expected to have an understanding of and commitment to safeguarding best-practice. 

Don't meet every single requirement?  

If you're excited about this role but your experience doesn't align perfectly with the job description, we'd love you to apply anyway. You might just be the perfect person for this role, or another role within the Action for Children family. 

Application Process

Please note we are unable to offer visa sponsorship for this role.

There are 5 sections for you to complete - Personal Details, CV, Supporting Statement & Information, Equality & Diversity, Submission & Declaration – please refer to the Job Description when applying. 

We also want to know what unique qualities you can bring to help us reach our vision for children and families.  

Talent Pool: We're sure you've got what it takes to join our ambitious team. If you're unsuccessful this time around, we'd like to hold your details in case similar jobs come up that you might be better suited for. But feel free to let us know if you'd rather we didn't do that. 

Want to know more about Spring and Oscars? 

Check out our socials on X (Twitter), Linkedin, Facebook or Youtube.

See below for further information about working with us:

Employee Reward Booklet

Spring Early Years Career Pathway

Job Description