Deputy Manager

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Job description

Job description

Monkey Puzzle Highbury Ofsted 'Outstanding' in all areas, looking for an exceptional management candidate to join our family and team.

Monkey Puzzle Highbury is owned and operated by the Kent family who are passionate about providing outstanding care and education to our children every day, sharing the family love right through our fantastic team of professional child carers. We have been graded Ofsted Outstanding in all areas for 7 years since opening and strive for the very best for our children and families.

We are keen to support management candidates in order for them to reach their full potential towards their ultimate career goals, and help them to learn and grow in an Outstanding learning environment.

Our organisation is growing fast, with plans to open more nurseries in the future, so progression within our organisation is a very real and achievable prospect. We provide training and development plans for all team members to ensure that we are always learning and improving together.

We believe in working collaboratively with and for each other to create our very own Monkey Puzzle family. We always say that when you join our team you become part of the family, and this family approach transcends through everything we do for our team and the children. The ownership comprises three brothers, their mum and dad, and we look after our team as if everyone is one of our own.

Benefits of joining our team:

Personal and Professional Growth:

We place a huge emphasis on self-development and growth. We do annual performance reviews where we celebrate the year of successes and identify targets for development in the future. We work with you throughout the year to offer support and funding to complete your targets so that you can continue to grow as a person and as a professional.

Our Vision and Ethos:

Our vision is "Inspiring children to change tomorrow's world' , which we bring to life with the 6 themes of our Ethos. Active Childhoods, Creative Minds, Eating Healthy, Loving the Planet, Evolving with Time and Equality & Diversity. These themes support how we teach and support the children, but they also underpin our family approach, supporting each other to be the best versions of ourselves. Our values were defined during a project where Team Highbury and Angel build our vision, which reinforce how we work together each day, embracing who we are and our differences to bring our vision alive. Our 'High 5' values are: holding hands, kind hands, open hands, clapping hands and your hands.

Leadership Coaching:

If you aspire to become a leader in our team then we want you to achieve your goal! We always say any one can be a leader at any time, provided the organisation and team culture promotes freedom of expression, sharing of ideas and our team vision.We offer bespoke leadership coaching for leaders and managers which helps and supports them to be the best leader, promoting team effectiveness and positive working culture.

Myers Briggs & Team Effectiveness:

We always want to support our teams to work well together, respecting each other's views and celebrating different skill sets and preferences. Myers Briggs is a personality typology, offering an introspective view of psychological preferences, helping us to better understand our colleagues and how different people perceive the world and make decisions.

Progressive Salaries:

We offer some of the best pay available in the early years sector, with generous salaries and annual pay reviews to share the successes of our growing organisation with each and every team member. We also reward additional childcare qualifications and operate a bonus schedule for loyalty to our nursery. We are proud to say we are a London Living Wage employer. Our Nursery Practitioner salaries start from £22,750 p/a with annual reviews in January. Each staff member gets a generous holiday allowance of 25 days holiday plus bank holidays. So we employ a highly motivated and well remunerated team.

Loyalty Bonus Scheme:

We really value longevity in role and dedication to our team, so we offer a Loyalty Bonus Scheme which rewards and celebrates each team members journey with us. For each year you work with us you will enjoy an extra £300 on top of your annual salary, paid to you as extra salary each month.

Managers Bonus Scheme:

Separate to our loyalty bonus scheme our managers enjoy a performance based bonus at the end of the year. This is a team effort to achieve a range of nursery performance targets across the year and bonus amounts range from 5-7% of annual salary depending on position.

Referral Bonus:

We always want recommendations for excellent new candidates to join our team. So, if you refer a new candidate to us and they complete their probationary period, then we pay you £250 in one lump sum to say thanks for your support in growing our team.

Our Wellbeing Lounge:

We have an amazing space for our team to rest and recuperate in our new Melody Lane nursery, just a moments walk from Monkey Puzzle Highbury. All team members from our 3 Islington sites can socialise and bond, learn and explore and even exercise. With our bespoke space designed to promote all areas of wellbeing in our team we offer a generously sized relaxing space to enjoy refreshment breaks, with a dedicated staff kitchen, oven and dishwasher, complimentary coffee and separate staff toilets. Our Wellbeing Lounge is also equipped with our state of the art exercise space, featuring treadmill, exercise bike, dumbbells, floor mats, TRX cables and more, and we even have a staff shower room for all those fitness fanatics who wish to work out on their break or as part of their morning commute.

Our Wellbeing Programme:

We know that in order to get the best for our children we must also support and promote positive wellbeing in our team. We have a specific wellbeing programme designed to encourage everyone in our team to look after each other, look after themselves and look after the team. We celebrate successes, share our appreciation and gratitude and spread the love where ever possible! We also offer individual support through any mental health challenges with a personalised approach to suit individual team members. We know that despite a passion for working with children, life has its own trials and tribulations, and we are always here to offer support and guidance. We have a team of Mental Health First Aiders, who are trained in dealing with complex mental health challenges and can support you every step of the way to have a fulfilled and happy career with us.

Staff Training and Team Building:

We have 3 Inset Training Days each year, where we get together for some team building activities and explore a range of training topics relating to childcare and quality of teaching and learning. We encourage our team to champion specific areas of interest, train to learn new skills and ideas, and share this learning for the wider team at our training sessions. Do you think you have what it takes to be a leader, shine in that moment, and share your ideas and thoughts with the wider team?

Team Awards Evening:

At the end of each year we host a team awards evening, which aims to celebrate the many successes throughout the year. We give out individual prizes and awards for people who show remarkable achievement and dedication to a specific task or subject area. We also give recognition for those who are recognised by the team as the most effective team players, and those who demonstrate an excellent aptitude to learn and grow. This is one of the most positive and emotional times of the year as we all get together and celebrate our team wins!

Staff Social Budget:

We like to always make sure that if you work hard, you can play hard too. As well as offering regular social events after each Inset Day, we also host an all-inclusive, festive extravaganza Christmas Party, where we dress to impress and celebrate the year with a bang! In addition to this we offer a team social budget for each room, meaning each term you and your team can enjoy some time outside of work to socialise and get to know each other a bit better, paid for by us.

Resources Budget:

We always want to support creativity in activity planning, teaching initiatives and learning, so to do this we offer each team a monthly resources budget, which can be spent on your room to ensure the learning opportunities for children are always fresh and exciting. We even sometimes 'double up' in recognition of some amazing efforts from our team!

If you are interested in an opportunity to join our team then please email your CV and a short covering letter and we will be in touch to arrange your interview!