Where Children are cherished

Join us

Current opportunities

We are always interested in meeting passionate and caring nursery practitioners who share our love for Early Years Education.  We would therefore encourage you to contact us to discuss any role you may be interested in within our nursery.  Please email  [email protected] or call 07594 446181 for an informal chat.  We also have the following opportunity available so please again contact me if this is of  interest.

  • Nursery Apprentice – to study Level 2 or level 3 in Early Years and Childcare
  • Nursery Practitioner (fulltime 4 or 5 days per week) – Qualified to Levels 3 or 5

At Little Adventurers, we believe that what young children need more than anything is to be cherished and allowed to live a rich childhood with time to explore and ponder the world around them. Our passion is that each child should grow up knowing how special they are, having super confidence and self-esteem. As children go through our nursery, we want them to have roots and wings- roots to know who they are and the special place they have in the world, and wings to exercise what they’ve learnt in their ongoing journey of life.

Whether you are a model practitioner or a budding apprentice who would like to share this passion to help our nursery reach for the stars please get in touch and come and see our special nursery!

Our staff benefits

60% child discount fees
Our nursery offers a 60% fee discount for your early years children subject to availability. To discuss this in more details please speak with our Nursery Managers. Fees are due on the 1st of each month in advance.

Induction programme
Our Induction programme usually starts after staff have spent around one week in the nursery. Staff may also spend some time initially as a ‘roaming’ practitioner; we feel this gives new staff a chance to get to know our children, our staff teams within each of the age groups and how we do things throughout the nursery. You will be assigned ‘a buddy’ (more on this below) and she or he will support you and be your aid for any questions or queries you may have when you initially join us. Your ‘Induction meetings’ will either be with our nursery manager or our deputy manager and will include meetings to discuss and arrange details such as:

  • A DBS Certificate
  • Reading and understanding all of our policies and procedures
  • Sessions to explain our nursery ethos; key aspects of our nursery practice and how we aim to deliver this within each age group
  • Questions or observations you may have, having already spent some time within our setting

Company Pension Scheme
We operate a contributory pension scheme which you will be auto-enrolled into (subject to the conditions of the scheme). The scheme enables you to save for your retirement using your own money, together with tax relief and contributions from the Nursery. If you would like further details of this scheme please ask our Nursery Manager who will arrange this for you.

In house Training & Access to Further Training
We arrange for two in house training sessions per year which are held on a Saturday morning.Employees are expected to attend this training as we feel it is really important for all staff to both keep abreast of EYFS changes and improve their working knowledge of the EYFS and Safe guarding.Staff are paid for this training which is usually delivered by our Nursery Manager. In addition to this, we do ask that all Full time staff have up to date First Aid Certificates and training will be provided by us for you to maintain your First Aid Training. The cost of the course is paid for by us but staff are asked to attend on a Saturday which will be in their own time as First Aid is a portable qualification by the individual. Little Adventurers is always very supportive of additional training interests or qualifications; if staff members are keen to pursue Levels 2,3,4,5 or 6 qualifications together with any particular training courses we welcome discussion on how we can sponsor such qualifications and support you to do this.

Continuing Professional Development, Further Career & Progression Opportunities
We pride ourselves on being very flexible, supportive employers always enthusiastic of your continuous professional development. As a growing company, with currently two settings but plans for opening a third in the future, we have plenty of progression possibilities for those who seek them. As well as training opportunities (explained in the training paragraph above), we are happy to consider placing individuals on training attachments or secondments within our nurseries to support your particular aims or interests. One way you can express this would be to discuss your interests in your 1 to 1 meetings or in your annual appraisal. However, you are always welcome to make your wishes known by approaching your senior in the first instance who will discuss this with the nursery manager. Even if you are interested in working with another age group; please always make sure we are aware such that we can plan how we can support your interests into the nursery structure.

Complimentary Staff Parties!
We believe in rewarding our staff and recognising their hard work and efforts; as such we provide a complimentary Christmas meal out each year for them to celebrate the season in style together in a relaxed way. This is usually put forward and organised by the social champion at the time and paid for by us! In addition to Christmas time, when we have all staff presentations (usually around 4 times a year) we arrange for a complimentary Pizza with all the trimmings tea at nursery. When Ofsted visited we also treated all the staff to a meal out to celebrate! We have also organised Strawberry Tea’s and other complimentary gatherings throughout the year. We always welcome party ideas and like to ask staff for their input in regards to all aspects of our nursery operations. This year (2024) we are organising a team to take part in the local Race for Life charity event which was a suggestion by our staff.

Approachable and accessible open door management
Our nursery management team are absolutely passionate about being available and welcome meetings with staff for whatever reason this may be. Our nursery managers all operate with a flexible and approachable attitude make it a friendly, open and flexible place to work. We are understanding if you have appointments that you need to keep or if you want to discuss an idea or put forward your thoughts in any way. The Nursery Director is also always happy to be available to staff members should the need arise and has often put himself out to come and speak personally to members of the team where he feels this is helpful and appropriate.

Staff Finders Fee
We believe in self referrals – most of our nursery children attend our nurseries through personal referrals – this is the best kind of promotion as there can be no better testament than from someone who is already experiencing our nursery care. In the same way, we believe that staff who experience working in our nurseries are best placed to tell prospective staff members what it’s like and how different we are to some other settings. We have therefore brought in a reward to recognise staff members who go that extra mile in promoting our nurseries to ex-colleagues or friends that may work in the early years sector or indeed to prospective apprentices. We award a finders fee of £450 for fulltime places and £350 for part time positions filled by our own staff team. This is paid to you within your salary once the new staff member has completed their probationary period.

Annual Staff Survey
What you think matters! We hold an annual staff survey every year in September to find out what you as a staff team think about the nursery, the company and what ideas you have to further enhance us both as a setting and as an employer. We have taken loads of ideas on board in the past and made them happen from installing gates to different areas of the facilities to introducing longevity bonus and changing the way we order resources. As the people ‘on the ground’ everyday, you can see where the system can be tweaked; where a specific piece of equipment or a new resource would make all the difference; or come up with a new staff benefit idea for the team. The point is we listen, we discuss as a management team and if we possibly can, we put your ideas into action! The surveys can be anonymous if you wish and there is a post box placed in the staff room for around a 2 week period for staff to add their comments and suggestions. It is always nice to receive the good news too about what you have enjoyed or what you think has worked well that we are doing right!

Regular All Staff Management Presentations
We are aiming for the stars! Once you have spent some time with us, you will begin to understand that we are always striving to improve – across all areas – from the nursery environment, to the resources, staff training and organisation. We always have a development plan and we there are always improvements and developments in the pipeline! We love our staff team being on this journey with us; sharing, supporting and contributing to our plans. This is why we like to hold regular all staff management presentations for our whole team; Lee, our Nursery Director always delivers the presentations to the team via a powerpoint presentation to explain the up and coming plans for the forthcoming 3 to 6 month period and beyond. We have always had great feedback from these evenings which take place for 1 hour after work and it’s important to us that staff understand the work going on in the background and the reasons for the improvements and enhancements. It is also a great opportunity to meet our Nursery Director and hear directly from him just how much he values the team and how very involved he is with every aspect of the nursery operations.

New Buddy Scheme
We have introduced a New Buddy Policy at Little Adventurers to support new team members. Assigning a workplace buddy can help ease the transition into new roles and can be very beneficial for all involved and we hope it will give you a positive start to working in our nursery. It will help you to understand how we do things and hopefully make you feel very welcome and at home much more quickly (this is why we also email the whole team every time a new staff member is about to join us). The idea is that you will be able to go to / ask your buddy little questions or queries that may seem a bit too trivial to ask the manager like where do staff keep their lunch or when do staff receive their rotas. You will be notified of your staff buddy either just before you start or the day you join us.

Internal nursery wellbeing

We work hard to show staff just how much we value them and we want to support them in having a good work /life balance which includes helping them look after their wellbeing (mental, physical and emotional). To this end, we provide the following to support the wellbeing of our team;

Complimentary Staff Team Building Events (Physical and non physical)
Every year we organise both a physical and non physical cross- nursery team building event for all of our nursery teams. These have included raft building and other physical team activities at Stubbers Adventure Park in Upminster, It’s a Knock out Competition at Mayhem Paintball in Abridge, Essex as well as garden parties like strawberry teas held in one of our nursery gardens and open to staff and their children. All events have been well supported and we receive very positive feedback from these team building days. We would encourage you to join us if you possibly can on our next team builder!

 Staff Newsletters
We feel it’s important to keep staff abreast and have a newsletter specifically for them which we email to the team and usually contain an introductory article regarding wellbeing, a calendar of our up and coming staff events; staff training available; new opportunities within the nursery teams along with a welcome to new staff members who have recently joined us. Having a staff newsletter is another great way of reminding the team of our progression opportunities/ training courses and wellbeing info as well as having a dedicated area where we can put all our messages in the one place. We welcome your feedback on thoughts about our staff newsletters or requests for information to be shared on them.

Monthly Staff Restaurant Vouchers for effort
We like to reward hard work and show the team how much we value them. As a way of saying thank you we reward staff with a  restaurant voucher of their choice.  Staff who go the extra mile and above and beyond in their work deserve recognition and praise and we are proud of our effort award winners who receive certificates with details of why they have been recognised for the award.

Annual Awards Ceremony
Praising our team on their many talents and skills over the year is something we feel strongly about. We therefore hold an annual ceremony where every staff member receives a certificate which congratulates them on their year’s work and more specifically in regard to their achievements and support over the past 12 months. This is always a very uplifting evening and certificates are read out in front of the whole team before the staff member is asked to come forward for a token ‘medal’ and to receive their certificate. We serve a complimentary pizza tea for these evenings which are always such a joy to be part of and highly regarded by the team.

Weekly online Pilates / Meditone sessions
With no obligation to join every week, we offer complimentary online classes with a trained instructor. You are able to join the classes weekly at your discretion and in the comfort of your own home either on Mondays between 7.30 and 8.30 pm or Thursdays (same time). Please let me know if you would like to try a taster class with Sheila Moses and I would be happy to arrange this for you. You will notice the difference after a few sessions I promise!

Mini Podcasts on Wellbeing
We provide ad hoc bespoke mini videos for all our staff teams to access at their leisure on health and wellbeing. So far these videos having included information on the importance of hydration, nutrition, sleep and mental wellbeing. All videos are available to view below so please click on the link to hear some great facts and support of your own wellbeing. If you have any requests on other subjects for us to provide support, please let me know.

  • 5 minute videos from Carly Campbell, our nursery nutritionist:

The importance of hydration

Vitamin D – the importance of the sunshine vitamin to our health

Energy levels and how to keep them up!

  • Yoga and Mindfulness Evenings together with Wellbeing tips from Sheila Moses, our nursery Pilates and Wellbeing Instructor

External Support Available for Wellbeing

Sometimes life is stressful outside of work and there are some situations out of our control. To support staff through these emotionally and mentally challenging times we are able to offer a complimentary helpline service which is completely confidential with experts trained to help you at times like this. This will be sent by email in the staff joining pack.

Training and counselling

At Little Adventurers we value our staff highly. We believe that personal and professional development is essential for maintaining the delivery of high-quality care and learning for children in their early years. It underpins all aspects of positive interactions and activities planned for children.

In the interests of the nursery, the children, their families and the individual, we allow every staff member to develop their skills to their maximum and broaden their knowledge and skills in caring for children.

All new staff members will be asked to complete our core training as part of our safer recruitment and induction process.
The following courses will be completed within this induction period. The nursery will finance these for you.

They are:

  • Safeguarding level 2
  • Health and safety
  • Prevent Duty
  • Manual handling-In-house
  • Food hygiene-In-house
  • FGM (FREE)

You may also be asked to complete:

  • First Aid
  • Food hygiene level 2
  • SEND

In-house training
We have newly introduced in-house training opportunities within the setting. This training is aimed at staff members who are completing their level 2 and 3 qualifications in childcare or are newly qualified or need/want a refresher. A management team member will discuss this further with you if we feel that you would benefit from this training.

Additional training
We are keen to support our staff members with continuing professional development. We have several roles and responsibilities within the company. These vary from practitioner and senior management roles to admin, marketing, nursery chef and finance.We advertise internally for roles within the company as well as externally, and all staff members can apply for these positions. We offer a range of training opportunities to help all staff achieve their aspirations, so please speak to a management team member if you are interested in training in these areas. As well as offering Apprenticeships, we are also keen to support staff in achieving access to higher education. This could be in Management, Teacher training, Finance, Childcare and many more.

  • We have close links with Havering College, Chelmsford college and local schools and universities, and online training providers such as open university Care first and Parenta training.

Please speak to a senior management team member to discuss this further. We would love to help wherever possible.
If you are interested in completing training within your current role we have the following training platforms that you can access within the setting during paperwork time or in your own time if you prefer.

They are:

  • Educare
  • Flick training
  • NDNA
  • Tutor care
  • Virtual college

Both Educare and Flick give you access to a range of free courses that can be accessed through your email address. Both providers update the range of courses regularly.  A list of all current courses is attached. 

NDNA and Tutor Care offer reduced price courses for members. They have face to face and online learning. 

The link for these are-

https://ndna.org.uk/hub/training-resources/

https://www.tutorcare.co.uk/ways-to-learn/

Counselling assistance

The mental health of the nation, indeed the world, has rarely been exposed to such unique and widespread stresses, including concerns about the virus itself, the pressures of mass isolation and the inevitable financial worries for those whose work may be in jeopardy.

Even for experienced business owners coronavirus will have brought challenges unlike anything they will have experienced before, and the situation will be no easier for their employees, many of whom may be facing unemployment or severe financial hardship.

There are many methods and resources being promoted to help people cope with the psychological onslaught that we’re all facing, from online tools to mindfulness apps. What suits different people will depend on their individual needs, situation and personality, but one-to-one counselling can be extremely helpful for some.

All ARAG business policyholders have access to our confidential FREE counselling helpline. Qualified counsellors are available, over the telephone, to talk through specific issues and help policyholders to cope with their feelings about what are incredibly stressful issues for us all. Further, the counselling helpline is not solely there for the owners, managers and senior employees of a business, it is there to be used by all staff and even members of their families, on whatever may be causing them concern or distress. Any conversations with counsellors are entirely confidential, and the service is accessible by calling the dedicated counselling separate helpline number 0330 000 2082. We always encourage policyholders to share this number with employees and to make them aware that telephone counselling is available to all. There are so many elements of the current crisis that are far beyond our control, but we can help by focussing on those things we may be able to influence, such as preserving and improving our mental wellbeing. The ARAG counselling helpline is available to help do that.