If you are offered a Manager role, you will receive a £1000 recruitment bonus after successfully completing your 3 month probation period

We are currently seeking a Nursery Manager to join our friendly and experienced team at our Nursery in the Westcroft District Centre, which is adjacent to our training centre. The 93-place nursery provides high quality, affordable childcare and early years education for the local community, in a building which has direct access to three outdoor spaces and spacious rooms inside.

We’re looking for dedicated, and inspirational individual for this challenging and exciting opportunity, with a passion and vision for outdoor play, forest schools, and an ethic of care, placing children’s needs at the centre of practice. The successful candidate will have to demonstrate a genuine passion for providing the highest standards in early years care, safeguarding, teaching and learning, promoting parent partnerships, outdoor learning, continued professional development and be an outstanding leader. As a charitable social enterprise Acorn Early Years prides itself on putting children before profit, and on delivering social impact. For this position we need an experienced Nursery Manager who understands how to lead outstanding practice.

What you’ll do

• Promote the benefits of outdoor play

• Lead the implementation of the Early Years Foundation Stage

• Safeguard and ensure wellbeing of all children and the team
• Promote and facilitate close partnerships with parents/carers, your team and colleagues within Acorn
• Develop and maintain highly professional working relationships with Local Authority departments, regulatory bodies and other agencies
• Continually develop professional learning and share knowledge of developments within Early Years
• Manage marketing drives to drive occupancy and brand awareness
• Manage budgets and ensure efficient staff deployment and use of resources
• Professionally engage with the entire team, ensuring their continued professional development is tracked and supported
• Lead, mentor and guide team members to ensure consistent excellence in all areas of practice
• Work in partnership with the training centre to showcase examples of inspirational nursery practice
• Promote and support inclusive practice

Who you’ll be

• Have an interest in, or ideally experience of, forest schools

• Qualified to a minimum of level 3, but ideally level 6, with a relevant early years qualification
• Have a minimum of 3 years’ experience in a senior or management role, with at least a year’s management experience

• Professional, ethical, enthusiastic, and dedicated to putting the needs of children first

• Experienced in leading a team, with a proven track record of achieving exceptional standards
• Excellent communication skills (verbal and written)

• Excellent knowledge of safer recruitment and safeguarding practices and confident to work with external agencies

We’re proud to be one of the leading early years providers in Milton Keynes, Northampton and Bedfordshire with over 35 years’ experience, who specialise in nature pedagogy and promoting the professional development of our employees. We are proud to have been awarded the Nursery World Nursery Group of the Year in 2024.

You will be rewarded with a competitive salary, great training and progression opportunities, enhanced pension contributions, and 65% childcare discount. As a not-for-profit organisation, Acorn always puts the needs of the children first, meaning you will be working for a business that cares about more than just profit.

The position is full time working 40 hours per week (you would be required to do a variety of early and late shifts, early shifts can start as early as 7.15am and the late shifts close is 6.15pm, or four 10 hour days with a day off).

Successful applications will need to provide ‘right to work in the UK’ documentation and undertake an enhanced DBS check along with two satisfactory references with no former safeguarding concerns raised or noted.

Acorn Early Years is committed to inclusion, and to safeguarding and promoting the welfare of children, and we expect all staff and volunteers to share this commitment.

Benefits:

As a thank you for all of your hard work and dedication to making Acorn a safe, nurturing and fun place for our children to be, we offer:

• Payscales that are competitive, transparent and reviewed annually
• 65% Childcare discount Pro-rata according to contracted hours
• Generous family leave
• Christmas closure
• 25 days of annual leave, plus bank holidays (and the option to buy more)
• 4 dedicated training days and individual development plans
• Enhanced pension scheme
• Cyclescheme
• Techscheme
• Length of Service awards
• Summer and Christmas parties
• Pay advances for when times are tough
• Employee assistance wellbeing programme