Nursery Manager

YMCA Fairthorne Group; Newport; On-site; GBP 38,000 - 54,000; Full time

Job summary

YMCA Fairthorne Group is seeking a Nursery Manager in Newport to lead the day-to-day operation, drive high-quality early years practice and nurture a positive, inclusive team culture. You’ll oversee safeguarding, participate in budget planning and occupancy strategies, and maintain outstanding service for children and families.

You'll work hands-on in the nursery, modelling high standards, mentoring staff, and ensuring regulatory compliance while delivering engaging, play-based learning within a

Qualifications

• Experience leading a nursery team and driving quality improvements.
• Proven ability to manage budgets and resources effectively.
• Strong safeguarding knowledge and regulatory compliance experience.
• Excellent communication with families, staff and external partners.

Responsibilities

• Lead day-to-day management and ensure smooth nursery operations.
• Inspire and develop the nursery team and foster an inclusive culture.
• Oversee safeguarding, health and safety, and regulatory compliance.
• Develop budgets, marketing plans and occupancy targets.
• Build positive relationships with families and staff and model high standards.

Skills

Leadership

Team development

Budget management

Safeguarding

Regulatory compliance

Communication

Mentoring

Education

Level 6 Early Years or Childcare

Level 5 Early Years qualification considered

Tools

Word

Excel

Outlook

Job description

Lead with purpose, Inspire your team, Give every child the best start Some Early Years roles are about what happens in one room. This one goes beyond the individual room - it helps shape the experience of every child whilst leading your team to create a culture, quality and experience that defines the whole nursery. As a Nursery Manager at YMCA Fairthorne Group, you'll be a pivotal part of the Nursery leadership team helping to nurture an inspiring environment that will create a brighter tomorrow for all. You will support with creating an exceptional experience for every child whilst ensuring families feel confident and supported.

A role with wider impact You'll work across the nursery providing inspirational leadership to your team whilst creating a positive culture where everyone feels valued, supported and motivated to deliver their best. A big part of your role will be helping us to provide secure, stimulating and nurturing spaces where children can develop and grow empowering them to learn and thrive.

You'll:

take overall responsibility for the day-to-day management and smooth running of the nursery lead, inspire and develop the nursery team, creating a positive and inclusive culture where colleagues feel supported and empowered. champion high quality, early years practice and ensure children receive engaging, stimulating and developmentally appropriate experiences build positive and trusting relationships with children, families and colleagues, acting as a visible and approachable leader within the nursery maintain an exciting and inspirational child-led, play-based environment utilising the outdoors as much as possible manage, recruit, train, support and inspire an outstanding staff team able to meet the needs of all the children in our care manage the nursery as a business, contributing to the writing and monitoring of an annual budget and implementing marketing and sales plans to achieve income and occupancy targets follow the YMCA Fairthorne Group's pedagogy and curriculum, using systems to monitor children's progress, share information with parents and plan activities to support each child's development lead on safeguarding, health and safety and child protection, ensuring all policies and procedures are understood and consistently followed oversee staffing, rotas, and resources to ensure the nursery operates effectively and meets the needs of our children and their families use observations, feedback, data and quality assurance processes to identify opportunities for improvement and drive positive change lead the nursery in maintaining the highest standards or regulatory and legislative requirements, including Ofsted, Environmental Health and Safety standards, with a commitment to achieving an 'outstanding' Ofsted rating.

This isn't leadership from a distance

You’ll be in the nursery alongside the people and children you're supporting

Developing a great Early Years Team

A big part of being a great Nursery Manager is creating a team where people feel supported to grow, develop and be their best. You'll lead by example, observe practice, share ideas, model high standards and create opportunities for your team to learn and develop. Sometimes that means recognising something a team member is already doing brilliantly and helping them build on it. Sometimes it means encouraging someone to try a different approach or giving them the confidence to step outside their comfort zone. And sometimes it means having an honest, constructive conversation when practice needs to improve. We're looking for someone who can challenge positively, give clear and supportive feedback, build confidence and bring people with them. When your team feel supported to grow, children benefit from better experiences, stronger relationships and higher quality care and learning.

The person we're looking for

Ideally, you'll hold a Level 6 Early Years or Childcare qualification, however, we're also happy to consider experienced Level 5 candidates who have the right background and are willing to continue developing

You’ll need to have:

a minimum of 3 years Leadership experience in an early years setting evidence of achieving high quality care, over and above the standard required by EYFS a level 4 Safeguarding qualification or willingness to work towards experience of working to budgets a good working knowledge of IT programmes such as Word, Excel and Outlook (training will be given on nursery software) a first aid qualification or willingness to train experience in mentoring and coaching staff and students

More importantly, we're looking for somebody who is:

confident in leading a team warm and approachable observant calm under pressure comfortable giving constructive feedback able to build trust with their team and the families we support curious about why things happen, not just what happened passionate about inclusion motivated by seeing other people develop committed to improving experiences for children

A different kind of Earl