Senior Nursery Practitioner

About The Role

Lead little learners. Inspire big futures.

Are you an experienced Early Years Practitioner ready to take the next step in your career? Join our friendly team at EKC Folkestone Nursery as a Senior Nursery Practitioner
, where you'll combine hands‑on care with leadership, helping children, colleagues and families thrive.

In this rewarding role, you will:

• Lead your base room, creating a safe, stimulating and nurturing environment where every child can flourish.
• Support and inspire your colleagues, promoting outstanding practice across the nursery.
• Work alongside the Nursery Leadership Team to deliver exceptional care and education in line with the Early Years Foundation Stage (EYFS).
• Build positive partnerships with parents and carers, ensuring every child receives the best possible start.
• Champion children's learning, development, wellbeing and safeguarding.
• Take ownership of a specialist area such as SEND, parent partnership, wellbeing or health and safety, helping shape and enhance our nursery provision.
• Play an active role in driving continuous improvement and maintaining the highest standards of care.

Working pattern:

• 37 hours per week
• A salary of £27,283 per year
• Monday to Friday
• All year round

If you're passionate about Early Years education and ready to make a real impact through leadership, we'd love to hear from you. This is your opportunity to help shape young lives while developing your own career within a supportive and forward‑thinking team.

Alongside our priority of excellent student experience, we also focus on our employees.

Check out our benefits when working for the East Kent Colleges Group

We're looking for an experienced and enthusiastic Early Years professional who is ready to take the next step in their career and make a real difference every day.

You’ll be someone who leads with confidence, inspires those around you and is passionate about giving every child the very best start in life.

You’ll bring:

• A recognised Level 3 Early Years qualification
  .
• Experience working in a nursery environment, including leading or supervising colleagues.
• A strong understanding of the Early Years Foundation Stage (EYFS), safeguarding and inclusive practice.
• The ability to create engaging, stimulating environments where children can learn, develop and thrive.
• Excellent communication skills, with the confidence to build positive relationships with children, families and colleagues.
• A proactive, organised and supportive approach, leading by example and encouraging high standards across the team.
• A commitment to continuous improvement and delivering outstanding care and education for every child.

If you're passionate about Early Years education, enjoy supporting others to succeed and want to be part of a welcoming team where your contribution is truly valued, we'd love to hear from you.

Outstanding Ofsted Provider
East Kent Colleges Group is an Ofsted Outstanding rated provider. It is proud to be the first General Further Education college organisation in the country to have received the Outstanding grade against each of the strands under the new Ofsted inspection framework. An inclusive provider, our colleagues place our students and the communities we serve at the heart of everything they do across EKC Group and this is illustrated in our ‘Strong’ skills grading by Ofsted.

Commitment to Safeguarding
We are committed to safeguarding and promoting the welfare of children and vulnerable adults and we ensure that all staff are aware of their responsibilities for upholding these principles.

As a designated establishment, we are exempt from the Rehabilitation of Offenders Act 1974 and therefore have an obligation to carry out checks to ensure that staff are suitable to work with children and vulnerable adults. These checks include conviction/caution self‑declaration, Enhanced DBS check and obtaining sufficient referencing.

It is a criminal offence to apply for a post which involves engaging in regulated activity relevant to children if you are barred from doing so.

If you are successful in being shortlisted to interview, your suitability to work with children and vulnerable adults will be explored as…