Nursery Manager
10 days ago
Pimlico
Who We Are \n Hatching Dragons is not a basic nursery group. We are early years development specialists, and the distinction matters enormously. \n \n We have built everything — our environments, our curriculum, our family partnerships, our daily rhythms — around a single truth: the developmental window between birth and five is the most significant period of neurological, emotional, and cognitive growth a human being will ever experience. We do not waste a moment of it. \n \n Our Development Framework together with a '3C curriculum' — Culture, Character, Cognition — runs through everything we do. It is not a programme, it is a philosophy, made operational in every observation, every Circle Time, every World Food Day, every interaction between a practitioner and a child. We deliver structured multilingual education throughout the day. \n \n We have a commercially qualified head chef preparing fresh, nutritionally balanced food for every setting. We have strong research links with UCL’s Institute of Education and Cambridge University’s Child Development and Psychology departments, and emerging relationships with the Anna Freud Centre for a clinically grounded mental health programme for our staff, children, and families. \n \n We are a business preparing for significant growth. New settings. New services. National and international expansion. The infrastructure is being built. \n \n A fresh rebrand is now ready to carry it, and we are building the leadership team that will take it there. \n \n The Opportunity \n \n Our Westminster nursery (located in Pimlico) has just completed a significant refurbishment and is preparing to double in capacity from September 2026. This is not a steady-state management role. This is a building role for a leader who wants to shape something, not just run something. \n \n You will join a group nursery leadership team that is readying for national and international expansion, have direct line into the Managing Director and will be part of the conversations that shape where this organisation goes next. \n \n The Westminster setting is your primary responsibility, but the ambition this role sits within is much larger. \n \n The Role — What You Will Actually Do \n \n This is a full-scope nursery management role with genuine leadership responsibility. You are not the most senior person in a room, you are the leader of a setting. The following is what that means in practice here. \n \n Leadership & Culture \n\n • Lead, coach, and inspire a growing team of practitioners, room leaders, and apprentices across all rooms\n, • Build and maintain the kind of team culture that makes people stay, grow, and deliver their best work\n, • Model the Hatching Dragons values — the 3Cs, the commitment to development, the warmth and the rigour — in everything you do\n, • Hold your team to high standards, with the coaching and support to meet it\n, • Be a visible, energetic, trusted presence in the setting every day\n\n \n Educational Quality & Curriculum \n\n • Take ownership of the delivery of the Hatching Dragons 3C curriculum and Child Development Framework across all rooms\n, • Drive outstanding EYFS practice — with the sights set firmly on operating at exceptional Ofsted standards\n, • Ensure every child is observed, known, and supported against their developmental milestones\n, • Oversee the Development Support Plan framework — ensuring every child who needs additional focus is identified and supported proactively\n, • Lead the multilingual and World Food Day programme delivery with excellence and consistency\n\n \n Operations & Compliance \n\n • Manage the day-to-day operational running of the setting — including staffing, ratios, rotas, and resource management\n, • An opportunity to run the nursery as a business, as a company director, with P&L ownership\n, • Ensure full EYFS statutory compliance across safeguarding, welfare, health and safety, and all regulatory requirements\n, • Maintain inspection readiness at all times — the standard that is lived daily, not prepared for occasionally\n, • Oversee accurate and timely record-keeping, reporting, and documentation across all rooms\n, • Manage relationships with external agencies, local authority, health visitors, and SEND specialists\n\n \n Family Partnership & Community \n\n • Build and maintain exceptional family relationships — treating every parent as a partner in their child's development, not a customer to be managed\n, • Lead on settling-in, progress meetings, DSP conversations, and room transition communications\n, • Represent Hatching Dragons to prospective families — conducting tours, converting enquiries, and building the Westminster community\n, • Be the visible face of Hatching Dragons Westminster in the local community and among existing families\n\n \n Commercial & Growth \n\n • Take ownership of occupancy targets and contribute actively to growing the Westminster setting to full capacity\n, • Lead the nursery sales programme, engaging across the local community to attract potential new parents into the nursery\n, • Work with the central leadership team on marketing, recruitment, and parent engagement initiatives\n, • Input into the wider group strategy — sharing intelligence from the setting that informs how we grow\n\n \n Salary & Package \n £45k - £55k dependant on experience - Performance-related bonuses - Employee benefits platform (virtual GP, EAP counselling, 9,000+ discounts) - Personal L&D budget - Un-capped commission opportunities with every family you bring in \n \n About You \n \n We aren't looking for JUST a qualified nursery manager, but a leader who is genuinely excited by what we are building and has the capability to help us build it too. \n \n You have the foundations \n\n • Level 3 Early Years qualification or above (EYFS-approved)\n, • At least one full nursery management role — you have run a setting before\n, • Strong working knowledge of the EYFS, Ofsted inspection framework and statutory safeguarding requirements\n, • Experience managing and developing a team of practitioners across multiple rooms\n, • A track record of building genuine family partnerships, not just communicating with parents, but partnering with them\n\n \n You have the right energy \n\n • High energy, high standards, and genuinely ambitious — for the children in your care, for your team, and for the organisation\n, • Entrepreneurial in mindset — you see what could be, not just what is. You build things rather than maintain them\n, • A natural coach — you develop people, you do not just direct them\n, • Calm under pressure and decisive when it counts\n, • Deeply committed to early years development as a specialism — not just as a job\n\n \n You will thrive here if \n\n • You want to be part of building something, not just running something\n, • You are energised by growth and comfortable with the pace and ambiguity that comes with it\n, • You believe in our 3Cs — that culture, character, and cognition are the real curriculum\n, • You hold yourself to the same standard you hold your team\n, • You want your work to matter — and you are willing to do what it takes to make it\n\n \n Why Join Hatching Dragons? \n \n You are joining at the right moment \n Westminster has just been refurbished. The brand has just launched. The curriculum framework is ready. The team is growing. Over 80 children arrive in September. This is the moment — and you would be stepping into it as the leader who makes it happen. \n \n You are joining a group, not just a nursery \n This is a group nursery leadership role with a single-setting focus. You will be part of a leadership team that includes Nursery Managers across our London settings, the central support team, continuous improvement consultants, and the Managing Director. The conversations you will be part of go well beyond Westminster. \n \n You are joining an organisation that invests in its people \n Every Hatching Dragons team member has a personal L&D budget. Access to a virtual GP and BACP-accredited counselling through our Perkbox partnership. A salary sacrifice scheme through Ezoo. A structured early years mental health programme developed with UCL and the Anna Freud Centre. Commission opportunities for bringing in new families. And a leadership team that is genuinely committed to making this a great place to work — not just in what it says, but in what it does. \n \n You are joining at the start of something national \n Hatching Dragons is preparing for significant expansion — new settings, new cities, new services, and new business models. The leaders who join us now are the leaders who will shape where we go. \n \n Safeguarding Statement \n Hatching Dragons is committed to safeguarding and promoting the welfare of children and expects all staff and volunteers to share this commitment. This role is subject to an enhanced DBS disclosure, satisfactory references and all other pre-employment checks required under the EYFS Statutory Framework and Keeping Children Safe in Education (KCSiE). \n \n What Success Looks Like — Your First 3–6 Months \n \n Month 1 — Know the setting. Know the team. Know the families \n Immerse yourself. Spend time in every room, with every practitioner, and with as many families as possible. By the end of month one you will have a clear picture of where the setting is — and a plan for where it needs to go. \n \n Months 1–3 — Embed the curriculum. Raise the standard \n The Hatching Dragons 3C curriculum, Teaching & Learning Master Framework & Child Development Frameworks are ready. Your job is to bring them to life consistently across every room — building the coaching culture that makes high standards stick and establishing yourself as a visible, trusted leader from day one. \n \n Months 2–4 — Prepare for Ofsted \n An inspection is expected. We aim for Outstanding — and that ambition needs to be present in every room, every day. Self-evaluation honest and evidenced. The team able to articulate intent, implementation and impact with confidence. Safeguarding airtight. \n \n Months 2–6 — Build the team \n Westminster grows to 82 children from September. Getting the right people into the right roles — inducted, supported, and developing — is one of your most important early priorities. The team you build now defines what this setting looks like for years to come. \n \n Months 3–6 — Drive occupancy \n Work with the central team to grow occupancy towards September targets. Convert tours. Make current families advocates.
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