Senior Early Years Practitioner

Spring Nurseries by Action for Children; Braintree; On-site; GBP 25,000 - 31,000; Full time

Benefits offered by this job

Annual leave

Training and professional development

Flexible family leave packages

Life cover and pension

Blue Light Card discounts

Job summary

Spring Nurseries by Action for Children in Braintree, Essex, seeks a Senior Early Years Practitioner (Room Lead) to guide a busy room, plan and deliver high quality EYFS activities, and support a safe, inclusive environment for all children.

You will lead and mentor colleagues, observe and record children's development, liaise with families, and ensure compliance with nursery policies and statutory requirements.

Qualifications

• Plan, implement and review engaging activities to promote learning and development in line with EYFS.
• Experience leading in an early years setting and supporting team practice.
• Effective communication across multiple age groups and abilities.

Responsibilities

• Lead the staff within the room to provide learning programmes matched to children's needs.
• Support children with special educational needs in collaboration with families and external agencies.
• Ensure nursery policies and relevant legislation are followed and report non-compliance.

Skills

Planning

Observation

Communication

Education

Level 3 early years and childcare qualification (NNEB, CACHE or NVQ Level 3)

Job description

Senior Early Years Practitioner (Room Lead)

Location:Braintree, Essex

Salary:up to £28,000 per annum

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

Closing date:Midnight on the 31st of August 2026

Benefits:

• 25 days annual leaveplusbank holidays
• Professional qualifications and excellent training
• Flexible maternity, adoption, and paternity packages
• Up to5% employer contributionandlife assurance cover
• Blue Light Card eligibility withdiscounts at15,000 national retailers

About the role

As a Senior Early Years Practitioner, you’ll play a key role in the nursery’s daily routine, leading your room to deliver high quality early years education and care for all children. You will plan, implement and review engaging activities that promote learning and development in line with the EYFS, ensuring every child thrives in a safe, stimulating, and inclusive environment.

In this role, you will support and guide other practitioners’ model best practise, and help maintain strong, positive partnership with parents and carers. You'll be responsible for completing accurate and up-to-date observations assessments and records.

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.
• Support children with emerging or established special educational needs, working closely with family’s staff external agencies and professionals to ensure each child's needs are understood and met
• 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.

About the nursery

Spring Carouselis a beautiful nursery providing exceptional early years education for children aged 6 months to five years. The nursery is set in a bright, welcoming environment with a fantastic outdoor space where children can play, explore and learn in nature throughout the seasons.

As a Senior practitioner, you’ll join our dynamic team, working together to support each child’s learning to ensure each day is fun and engaging.

Why Spring Nurseries

At Spring Nurseries, you’ll be part of a supportive and purpose-driven team committed to delivering exceptional early years education. We invest in our staff through ongoing training, development opportunities and career progression, creating an environment where both children and colleagues can thrive.

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.

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 arecommittedto safer recruitment practices to protectourservice users; therefore, all applicants are expected tohaveanunderstandingof andcommitmenttosafeguarding best practice.

Don't meet every single requirement?

Application Process

Please note we are unable to offer visa sponsorship for thisrole.

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 onLinkedin,FacebookorYouTube.

See below for further information about working with us:

Employee Reward Booklet

Spring Early Years Career Pathway

Job Description