Nursery Cook
Location: Langport, Somerset
Salary: up to £28,992 per annum (pro rata)
Contract/Hours: Permanent/Part Time – 25 hours per week
Closing date: Midnight on the 10th of December 2025
Benefits:
* Time off to recharge - 33 Days leave per year (pro rata).
* 24/7 Confidential Helpline speak to trained counsellors any time, 365 days a year, for emotional, wellbeing or mental health support.
* Enhanced Well-being: 8 sessions In-Person, Phone, or Online Counselling or CBT
* Treat yourself: Staff discounts portal and blue light card with 15,000 + retailers
* Salary Finance – access to financial advice and the ability to manage savings or loans directly from your salary.
* Childcare Discount – A whopping 60% off childcare within our nurseries and out of school clubs
* Up to 3 Days Dependency Leave – to care for dependents in an emergency.
* Paid maternity, adoption, and paternity leave
* Gain professional qualifications and excellent training/development opportunities.
* Secure your future: Pension with up to 7% employer contribution with included life assurance cover.
We're thrilled that you're considering a career with Spring. Spare us five minutes, and we will tell you what you need to know.
Why Spring Nurseries
Imagine a place where laughter echoes, imaginations run wild, and every day is a new adventure. That's Spring Nursery We're not just a nursery; we are a family dedicated to creating a joyful and nurturing environment where children thrive. As part of Action for Children, we're on a mission to provide outstanding early education that's accessible to all.
At Spring, we are committed to supporting your career growth Check out our Spring Career Progression Map attached to this advert, which highlights the options for progression into a specialist role.
A bit about the role:
We're looking for a creative and caring nursery cook to join our team. This is a wonderful opportunity for someone who experienced in a larger or commercial kitchen to take on a more personal, child focused role, cooking nutritious, tasty meals from scratch every day.
As a nursery cook, you will take full ownership of the kitchen, planning and preparing balanced, child-friendly meals from our menus, managing stock and food orders, and always maintaining excellent hygiene and safety standards. You'll take pride in keeping the kitchen spotless, well organised, and running smoothly.
Because we are a small, close-knit setting, it's really important that you genuinely enjoy being around children and feel comfortable engaging with them throughout the day. Cooking for children is quite different from cooking in a standard commercial kitchen, and we are looking for someone who can bring food to life in a warm, playful, and engaging way.
We would love you to get involved in the fun side of nursery life, whether it's running a mini cooking activity, chatting with children about ingredients, or helping them explore healthy eating in a hands-on joyful way.
If you're ready to bring big flavours to little appetites and make mealtimes one of the most joyful parts of the day, we'd love to hear from you.
A bit about the nursery:
Spring The Levels is a 36-place nursery located within The Levels Children Centre in Langport. The nursery provides a warm, friendly and stimulating environment for children ages 3 months to 5 years. Our highly qualified and dedicated team are passionate about nurturing children and supporting their early learning and development.
We work collaboratively with the wider network of Spring Nurseries in the local area, fostering shared resources, best practices, and a strong support system to ensure everyone has the tools they need to succeed.
What you'll be doing
In the role of Nursery Cook, you'll be:
* Planning healthy meals, with staff that are nutritious, varied and tasty, considering the children's dietary and cultural requirements.
* Taking full responsibility for compliance with all relevant food hygiene and Health & Safety requirements.
* Ensuring that all stock is order and replenished as needed, that food is correctly stored in line with guidance and that stock is rotated and all equipment is kept clean and in good repair.
* Keeping waste to a minimum, ensuring our impact on the environment is as minimal as it can be, and costs are kept low.
* Managing the food budget and taking responsibility for the expenditure and invoicing.
* Always following latest legislation in relation to food and food hygiene and taking part in all necessary and required training as needed.
What we need from you
In the role of Nursery Cook, we're ideally looking for someone who has:
* A basic food hygiene certificate - Level 3 preferred but can be obtained in the role.
* A passion for cooking and following the spring menu and inputting new ideas and recipes into menu updates.
* Excellent organisational skills.
* Experience in a similar role working in a catering environment.
Contact: If you need support with your application, please contact our Recruitment Team at quoting reference 12249
Diversity, Equality and Inclusion
At Spring 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.
Application Process
Please note we are unable to offer visa sponsorship for this role.
There are 5 sections for you to complete - Personal Details, CV, Supporting Statement & Information, Equality & Diversity, Submission & Declaration – please refer to the JD and Person Specification when applying.
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.
If you need support with your application, please contact our Recruitment Partner
We'll be happy to give you any support you require.
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Job Description
See below for further information about working with us:
Employee Reward Booklet
Spring Early Years Career Pathway