Kitchen Assistant / Lunch Cover – Ellingham House Day Nursery
15 hours per week • Monday–Friday • 11:00am–2:00pm • All Year Round
Salary: £12.76 per hour
Ellingham House Day Nursery is looking for a friendly, reliable and enthusiastic Kitchen Assistant to join our warm and welcoming team. This role is perfect for someone who enjoys working around food, loves supporting children’s wellbeing, and thrives in a nurturing, homely environment.
🌿 Why Join Ellingham House Day Nursery?
Set within a beautiful Georgian country house surrounded by 2.5 acres of lawns and woodland, our nursery is a truly special place to work. Children enjoy outdoor exploration, climbing adventures in our ‘bear cave’, and even caring for our charming resident Valais Black Nose sheep—Baarbara and Soozie!
With dedicated rooms for babies, toddlers and preschoolers, our nursery has a genuine home‑from‑home feel and a supportive team who are passionate about helping children thrive.
We’re open 8:00am–6:00pm, and although this role is 15 hours per week, you’ll be part of a team that works collaboratively across the setting.
Learn more about us: (url removed)
🍽️ Your Key Responsibilities
As our Kitchen Assistant, you will play an important role in ensuring children receive nutritious meals in a safe and clean environment. Your duties will include:
Preparing and organising food ingredients
Supporting the chef with serving meals and managing allergy requirements
Maintaining excellent hygiene standards across the kitchen and dining areas
Completing hygiene checklists and adhering to Cleaning Schedules
Receiving, rotating and organising food stock
Monitoring cooking times and temperatures
Loading/unloading the dishwasher
Light cleaning and household duties
Assisting in nursery rooms when required
🧡 What We’re Looking For
Essential:
Experience managing dietary requirements and food allergies
Knowledge of COSHH
Experience in cooking within domestic or commercial settings
Fluent written and spoken English (GCSE grade C or equivalent)
Desirable:
Experience preparing meals for young children
👨👩👧 Why Family First?
At Family First, we embrace diversity, individuality and the true meaning of belonging. We’re a family in every sense—bringing together people of different ages, backgrounds, cultures, genders and skillsets. Every person helps define who we are.
We are: Defined by Family.
We are committed to safeguarding and protecting the welfare of children and expect all staff and volunteers to share this commitment. A Disclosure and Barring Service Certificate will be required for all posts. This post will be subject to enhanced checks as part of our Safeguarding Duty. Ellingham House Day Nursery is part of the Family First Group where we take great care to treat everyone as a person, with equal rights and responsibilities to any other individual, whether they are an adult or a child. We are committed to providing equality of opportunity and anti-discriminatory practice for all children and families according to their individual needs. Discrimination on the grounds of gender, age, race, religion or belief, marriage or civil partnership, disability, sexual orientation, gender reassignment, pregnancy or maternity, ethnic or national origin, or political belief has no place within the Family First Group