Senior Early Years Practitioner
Location: Sandwich, Kent
Salary: up to £27,200 per annum (dependent on experience)
Contract/Hours: Permanent/Full Time – 40 hours per week.
Closing date: Midnight on the 28th of November 2025
Benefits:
* Time off to recharge – 25 days annual leave (plus bank holidays)
* 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
* 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 - with excellent training/development opportunities.
* Salary Finance - access to financial advice and the ability to manage savings or loans directly from your salary.
* Secure your future - Pension with up to 7% employer contribution with included life assurance cover.
* Staff discount portal: and Blue Light Card eligibility with 15,000 national retailers' discounts
We're thrilled that you're considering a career with Spring. Spare us five minutes, and we'll tell you what you need to know.
About Spring
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.
About the role
As a Senior Early Years Practitioner, you'll play a key role within our nursery team, leading your room to deliver high quality early years education and care for all children. You'll plan, implement, and review engaging daily activities that promote learning and development in line with the EYFS, ensuring every child can thrive in a safe, stimulating, and inclusive environment.
In this role, you'll support and guide other practitioners, modelling best practise and help to maintain strong, positive relationships with parents and carers. You'll also take responsibility for accurate and up to date observations, assessments, and records. As part of our senior team, you'll act as a key support to the management team, taking on additional responsibilities when needed.
This is a fantastic opportunity for an experienced practitioner who is ready to take the next step in career, developing leadership skills within a supportive, forward thinking nursery environment.
About the nursery:
Saint Barts is an established nursery running for over 20 years, providing high quality care and education for children up to the age of eleven across both our nursery and out of school setting. Set within a beautiful grade 2 listed manor house, surrounded by an acre of gardens, our nursery offers a warm, homely atmosphere where children can learn and exploring the safe, stimulating environment. Each room is filled with natural light and designed to feel welcoming and nurturing. With dedicated physical activity and nutritional coordinators, plus engaging sessions such as baby ballet and multisport. St Barts is a vibrant and supportive setting where every child can thrive.
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.
* 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.
Whether this is a career change for you or the next step in your journey, we'd love to hear from you.
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 quoting reference
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.
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 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.
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 on Linkedin, Facebook or Youtube.
See below for further information about working with us:
Employee Reward Booklet
Spring Early Years Career Pathway
Job Description