Senior Early Years Practitioner

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

Benefits offered by this job

25 days leave + bank holidays

Training & qualifications

Flexible maternity/adoption/paternity

Employer pension contribution 5% &life

Job summary

Spring Nurseries by Action for Children is seeking a Senior Early Years Practitioner (Room Lead) to lead a room in Witham and deliver high quality EYFS education and care. You will plan, observe, and review learning activities, support colleagues, and build strong partnerships with parents to ensure every child thrives in a safe and inclusive environment, in line with EYFS standards.

The role offers a permanent full-time contract (40 hours/week), a salary up to £28,000, and benefits including

Qualifications

• Level 3 early years and childcare qualification required.
• Knowledge of EYFS and child development essential.
• Experience leading in an early years setting desirable.

Responsibilities

• Lead the staff in the room, planning and delivering developmentally appropriate learning.
• Support children with special needs and work with families and external professionals.
• Ensure nursery policies and legal requirements are followed and observations are recorded.

Skills

Strong planning

Observation of children

Communication skills

Team leadership in EY setting

Education

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

Paediatric First Aid

Job description

Senior Early Years Practitioner (Room Lead)

Location:Witham

Salary:up to £28,000 per annum

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

Closing date:Midnight on the 24th 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

• 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 Harlequin, is a 37-place nursery care for children from birth to 7 years, offering full-day sessions and wrap around care with breakfast and after-school fun. It offers a home-from-home environment where children are encouraged to play, explore, and grow at their own pace, guided by caring practitioners who help them become confident, curious learners.

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.

Contact: If you need support with your application, please contact our Recruitment Team at [e-mail] quoting reference 13527.

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.

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.

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 would rather we didn\'t do that.

Want to know more about Spring and Oscars?

Check out our socials on LinkedIn, Facebook, YouTube.

See below for further information about working with us:

Employee Reward Booklet

Spring Early Years Career Pathway

Job Description