Senior Nursery Manager at Action for Children

Role: Ref 12003 – Senior Nursery Manager

Location: Langport, Somerset

Salary: Up to £40,950 per annum, depending on experience 

Contract/Hours: Permanent / Full Time – 40 hours per week 

Closing date: 10^th October 2025

Benefits:  

• 30 days annual leave PLUS bank holidays
• 60% discount on childcare within our nurseries and clubs 
• Gain professional qualifications and excellent training/development opportunities 
• Flexible maternity, adoption, and paternity packages 
• 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

Spring offers award-winning childcare services, as part of the national charity Action for Children. It's 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 a Senior Nursery Manager to lead the day-to-day operations of a vibrant nursery in Langport, whilst also providing strategic oversight and support to Nursery Managers across a wider cluster of services. 

This role combines hands-on operational leadership with regional influence, ensuring consistent delivery of high-quality care and education across multiple settings. 

You’ll be responsible for guiding and mentoring nursery managers, driving performance, and maintaining excellence within your own nursery, all while shaping standards and outcomes across the district hub. 

If you’re ready to take the next step in your early years leadership journey, we’d love to hear from you.

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 
• 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 an 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 [email protected] quoting the above Reference.

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. 

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? 

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See below for further information about working with us:

Employee Reward Booklet

Spring Early Years Career Pathway

Job Description