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Senior Nursery Manager – Recruitment
Location: Langport, Somerset
Salary: £40,950 per annum
Contract/Hours: 40 hours per week
Closing date: Midnight on the 30th of October 2025
Interviews to be held week commencing the 3rd November 2026
About Spring by Action for Children
Spring offers award-winning childcare services, as part of the national charity Action for Children. It is our mission to be the best provider of outstanding quality early education to children throughout the UK, that is accessible to all. We are focused on enabling young people to learn, have fun and make friends in our bright, engaging settings. That starts with creating a happy environment for our team. Join us and you can look forward to:
* A kind, caring culture with an emphasis on wellbeing, both physical and mental.
* Flexible working – wherever possible we offer flexibility on hours and/or hybrid working.
* Lots of opportunities for training, learning, development, including gaining qualifications.
* Excellent benefits that compare favourably to other employers in our sector.
About The Role
This is an exciting opportunity for an experienced nursery manager ready to take the next step in their career. As Senior Nursery Manager, you’ll lead the day-to-day operations of our vibrant nursery in Langport (The Levels), while also providing strategic oversight and support to nursery managers across four additional Spring nurseries in the local area.
This pivotal role blends hands-on leadership with regional influence, ensuring the consistent delivery of outstanding early years care and education across multiple settings. You'll be instrumental in mentoring and guiding nursery managers, driving performance, sharing best practice and maintaining the highest standards of quality and compliance.
We’re seeking someone with a minimum Level 3 Early Years qualification (or equivalent) and demonstrable experience of leading and managing high-quality early years services. The ideal candidate will have a proven track record of success in managing nursery teams, delivering exceptional outcomes for children, and inspiring others to achieve excellence across a group or district level.
What you’ll be doing
In the role of Senior Nursery Manager, your key responsibilities would be:
* Managing and maintaining excellence within your own nursery, ensuring smooth daily operations and high-quality early years provision. (the setting is not yet graded outstanding)
* Overseeing and supporting Nursery Managers across the Taunton district hub, guiding performance, mentoring teams, and driving consistency across the cluster, ensuring each setting is aligned to the spring ethos of quality teaching and learning.
* Driving the quality of each setting to meet the standards of good Ofsted rating and aspiring to achieve 25% outstanding settings by 2028.
* Managing any complaints that have been escalated and fulfils the required range of HR responsibilities including appraisals, staff recruitment and selection, management of investigations, disciplinary processes including chairing hearings.
* Delegate responsibility for all nursery budgets in the district hub working closely with the Nursery Manager to meet targets. In doing so, to liaise with the business support officers around the operational and financial aspects of the business to ensure effective use of management systems and information.
* Agree and review individual targets and objectives with Nursery Managers within the district hub and provide regular feedback on performance.
What we need from you
In the role of Senior Nursery Manager, we are looking for a people person and you would ideally have:
* A recognised Early Years qualification at Level 4 or equivalent demonstrable experience.
* A Leadership and management qualification or be willing to work towards this.
* Must have a proven track record of leading and managing high quality services within the Early Years Sector.
* Experience of managing the day-to-day operations of a nursery setting
* Demonstrable experience of working to OFSTED/Care Inspectorate guidelines.
* Knowledge of and the ability to interpret financial management & budgetary techniques
* Experience of operational planning which may include but not limited to staffing, equipment, training, emergency measures.
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 RecruitmentService@actionforchildren.org.uk quoting reference 12097.
We'll be happy to give you any support you require.
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.
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.
Seniority level
* Mid-Senior level
Employment type
* Full-time
Job function
* Management and Education
Industries
* Education, Individual and Family Services, and Non-profit Organizations
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