Role: Operations Manager

Salary: £34,670 per year

Contract/Hours: Permanent Full Time 40 hours per week

Location: Taunton, Somerset

Closing date: Midnight on 9th February 2023

Perks: We have some of the best employment terms and benefits package in the sector, including generous leave entitlement, paid time off to deal with family emergencies and paid maternity leave – as well as lots of benefits to save you and your family money and to save for your future. Check out more on our careers portal.

About Spring

We are proud to be part of the Action for Children family, a national children’s charity and our success in Spring makes a difference. With over 150 years of experience in caring for children and young people, we are an award-winning quality and ethical provider. Any profit we make is aligned to support vulnerable children and young people in need across the UK, through the work of Action for Children. We believe all children deserve the best early start in life. 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 looking to learn, have fun and make friends in our bright and engaging settings.

The Role

We have an exciting opportunity for a Operations Manager to Provide local leadership, direction, and support to Nursery Managers across the Somerset region overseeing performance management within a district hub whilst also maintaining operational responsibility for a local Nursery. You will be giving the necessary support and guidance to enable Managers to deliver the highest standards of care and education.

What you’ll be doing:

  • Providing line management to Nursery Managers within a district hub to develop open and positive working relationships, consistency of practice and consistent implementation of Spring policies across the district.
  • 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 fulfills 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:

  • 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.
  • 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. Given this and how having a diverse workforce enriches the lives of the children and young people we work with we are committed to Diversity and Inclusion and welcome applications from everyone. We value and celebrate the diversity of those that work with us and as an inclusive workplace we want all our current and future staff to feel able to be themselves in the workplace.

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.

Good luck! We can’t wait to hear from you.