Room Leader
Reporting to: Nursery Manager
Location: Ark Start Globe (Elephant and Castle) and Ark Start St Clement (Holland Park)
Contract: Permanent
Working Pattern: Full-time (37.5 hours per week)
Closing date: 31/07/2024 at 10am
Interviews: w/c 05/08/2024
Salary: Competitive
About the role:
As we expand, we are looking for room leaders to join the founding team at Ark Start Nurseries. This role offers an exciting opportunity to make a meaningful difference in the lives of children, shaping their early experiences and laying the foundation for their future success.
The role involves leading the provision for children under 3, ensuring a high standard of physical, emotional, social, and intellectual care. Responsibilities include safeguarding all children, promoting their welfare and safety, and creating an enabling environment for play, learning, and development. The ideal candidate will possess the skill, creativity, commitment, energy, and enthusiasm necessary for leading room practice.
Key Responsibilities:
- To promote the aims and objectives of the nursery
- To promote the high standards of the nursery at all times to parents, staff and visitors
- Model professionalism and escalate any concerns
- Ensure that opening and closing checklists are completed daily
- Report any procedural issues around compliance to the Nursery Manager
- Keep MIS updated
- Leading setting visits for children joining their room
- Meet with parents alongside play partner if needed to support difficult conversations
- Be aware of services and support for families and signpost where appropriate
- Communicating with Nursery Manager about any resources needed to implement curriculum
- Plan out environmental enhancements with room team and lead on creation of these in line with project planning
- Managing the daily running of the room through morning briefings, notice boards and in the moment communication
- Organise lunches and breaks for staff
- Implement routines for daily running e.g. snack, lunch, nappies and toileting
- Support staff in room to write initial concerns
- Alongside the SENDCo, write IEPs
- Support staff to implement IEP targets
- Escalate where additional support is required
Key Requirements:
- Qualified at level 3 or above; level 6 desirable
- Right to work in the UK
- An exceptional early years teacher
- Experience and knowledge of early child development
- Sound knowledge of the legislation and guidelines of the EYFS and an excellent understanding of pedagogy, curriculum, and assessment
- Genuine passion for and a belief in the potential of every child
- Commitment to the vision and ambition of Ark Start
- A robust awareness of keeping children safe, noticing safeguarding and welfare concerns, and you understand how and when to take appropriate action
- Excellent interpersonal, planning, and organisational skills
- Resilient, motivated, and committed to achieving excellence
- Skilled communicator who enjoys working with families
- Generous manager who can bring out the best in colleagues through coaching and support
- Commitment to regular and on-going professional development and training to establish outstanding classroom practice
View the full job description and person specification here
About Ark Start:
Our dedicated team work together to ensure that every child has a joyful, engaging, and secure nursery experience and leaves us ready to start school happily and confidently. We are driven by our values in everything we do: Aim High, Be Brave, Be Kind and Keep Learning.
Ark Start is at an exciting time in its evolution. We have four nurseries in London and aim to expand our reach over the coming years.. As we expand, we are looking for Early Childhood Educator to join our founding team. We are looking for someone with a genuine passion for young children and with the skill, creativity, commitment, and energy to deliver excellent provision at Ark Start.
Benefits:
- A Real Living Wage Employer: We are a Real Living Wage employer with a minimum salary of £13.15 per hour for all roles in London. We also pay 11% pension contributions
- Ongoing Learning: We are committed to providing the best development for all our staff. We close the nurseries for five days each year to focus on staff training and ensure there is protected time for training and supervision each week for every adult. We work hard to ensure there are clear career progression routes
- Annual leave: We are proud of our staff and want everyone to feel valued for playing their part. That’s why staff receive 25 days holiday each year, excluding bank holidays
- Wellbeing: Staff wellbeing is incredibly important to us. We know that while incredibly rewarding, working in a nursery can be challenging. We therefore work hard to ensure all staff have the support and infrastructure they need to take care of their wellbeing
- Part of a Network: Ark Start is part of Ark, a charity that aims to transform children’s lives through education. Ark operates a network of 39 schools across London, Birmingham, Portsmouth, and Hastings as well as a number of charitable ventures. Being part of a network means our staff get access to the opportunities, infrastructure, and support of a large organisation
How to Apply:
Apply with a CV and cover letter on our online recruitment portal. Applications to be submitted by Wednesday 31st July 2024 at 10am but please note: we will be reviewing applications on an on-going basis and this advert may close earlier than advertised depending on the level of response.
If you would like to hear more about this role or about Ark Start, please contact HR@arkstart.org.uk
This ATS application form should take no longer 20 minutes to complete. At any time, you can pause, save, and log back in. If you have any difficulty with your application, please contact recruitment@arkonline.org
Ark is committed to safeguarding and promoting the welfare of children and young people in its academies. In order to meet this responsibility, its academies follow a rigorous selection process to discourage and screen out unsuitable applicants.
Ark requires all employees to undertake an enhanced DBS check. You are required, before appointment, to disclose any unspent conviction, cautions, reprimands or warnings under the Rehabilitation of Offenders Act 1974 (Exceptions) Order 1975. Non-disclosure may lead to termination of employment. However, disclosure of a criminal background will not necessarily debar you from employment - this will depend upon the nature of the offence(s) and when they occurred. To read more about Ark’s safer recruitment process, please click this link.
We aim to build a diverse and inclusive organisation where everyone – staff and students – can do their best work and achieve their full potential. We want to reflect and represent diverse perspectives across our organisation because we know that doing so will make us stronger and more effective. To know more about Ark’s diversity and inclusion commitments, please click on this link.