Nursery management includes any position with leadership responsibilities, from nursery manager to room leader. Your career progression is likely high on your priority list. But when do you know you’re ready to take the necessary steps to achieve a leadership position?
If you’re thinking about it, you’re ready to start bulking up that CV to secure your dream position.
In this article:
What does a nursery manager do?
A nursery manager is at the top of the leadership scale within a nursery setting. They will work closely with the nursery owner to ensure the early years setting is a safe and stimulating environment for babies and toddlers to thrive in.
Alongside the day-to-day running of the nursery, the manager is responsible for the overall strategic direction the nursery takes, ensuring the setting offers high-quality childcare, effectively supports families, and is a positive place of work for all employees.
Nursery managers are responsible for recruiting (and ultimately retaining) good-quality nursery staff. The impact an effective manager can have on the success and happiness of the team cannot be underrated – if you’ve ever watched The Office, you’ll know!
The role of a nursery manager is diverse— more so than any other ‘regular’ management role. Where else would you need in-depth knowledge of the latest Disney films and complete visibility of financial forecasting?
Here are some of the roles that fall under the nursery manager’s umbrella:
- Budget keeping and monitoring
- Recruitment and training of nursery practitioners
- Parent interactions (including managing angry parents)
- EYFS curriculum strategy
- Safeguarding and child protection
- Organising staff rotas
- Marketing the nursery for prospective customers
- Being mindful of Ofsted inspections
- Ensuring the nursery stays compliant with all statutory policies for EYFS
What qualifications are needed for a nursery manager?
There are lots of different routes to becoming a manager of a nursery. As with any position, there are essential and desirable qualifications and skills when securing a nursery manager job.
Essential qualifications and skills for a nursery manager
To become a nursery manager, you’ll need at least a Level 3 qualification in childcare. This can be achieved through a university course, an apprenticeship, or completing a college course.
All the required qualifications for childcare positions can be found online. If you aren’t sure if your qualifications allow you to apply for nursery manager jobs, you should check with the nursery advertising the job.
If you don’t yet meet the qualification threshold to apply for management positions, don’t worry! There are lots of funded courses to get you onto the leadership ladder in an area of interest.
For example, you may find yourself naturally drawn to supporting children with Special Educational Needs and Disabilities (SEND). There is a big push on upskilling early years practitioners with SEND expertise—moving into the role of early years SENDCO for your current setting might be an avenue well worth researching.
Many job adverts for nursery managers will state the qualifications they are looking for, ‘Our ideal candidate is someone with a BA degree in Childhood Studies or a willingness to work towards this qualification’ for example.
You’ll usually need between one and three years of practical experience in a nursery setting (or in education) before being considered for management positions.
Here are some examples you may see under the essential criteria for EYFS management:
- A relevant professional qualification
- At least two years of experience in a leadership role in an EYFS setting
- Strong knowledge of the EYFS statutory framework
- Secure knowledge and application experience of child protection procedures
- The ability and experience in motivating and supporting a growing team
Desirable qualifications and skills for a nursery manager
The desirable category may change from nursery to nursery. It is often setting-specific to fill experience or knowledge gaps within the team. For example, the early years setting you are applying for may have ‘A knowledge of or interest in British Sign Language’ in their job application pack due to a new child or parent joining that is deaf.
Here are some examples of desirable qualities you may find in a nursery manager job advert:
- Experience in leadership using a particular method or approach (like the Curiosity Approach)
- Management experience in an Ofsted-rated good or outstanding nursery
- Paediatric First Aid qualification
- Up-to-date safeguarding qualification
- Recent Ofsted experience
Sound familiar? If you are considering a move into nursery management, it is unlikely there are any surprises in the above lists. The next step is to think about where you excel and where you focus your improvement efforts to bag your dream job.
Leadership skills to help you progress into nursery management
Ticking off all of the essential and desirable criteria on paper is a good start and may help you get the job. But the skills needed to really succeed as a nursery manager are far more complex.
All leadership skills can be developed through personal reflection and trial and error—it is a continual learning process to manage and support your team to the best of your knowledge and ability.
Whether you’re taking your first step into nursery management (including room leadership or deputy manager positions) or expanding to become a nursery area manager, you’ll need some leadership fundamentals.
- Patience, understanding and empathy
- Strategic and evaluative skills
- An understanding of tools and software that can improve efficiency
- An awareness of the latest research in the early years sector
- A confidence to evaluate and alter processes that could be improved
- Top organisational skills (or software that will do it for you)
- Self-awareness and a drive for improvement
Tips for moving into nursery management
With any career move, it is always advised to have a larger goal to work towards. For example, if you are moving into your first leadership position, would you like to manage a nursery in the future or get your teeth into the challenge of improving a nursery that is a little rough around the edges?
You may want to open your own nursery or expand into a nursery empire.
Here are some tips to help you with your move into nursery management.
Research funded childcare courses
With the introduction of a new government, many of Labour’s initial proposals centre around childcare. Keeping in the loop with funded government training and qualifications can help push you further towards achieving your career goals.
Build a network of support
When you move into management, having a mentor who can guide you through challenging situations is valuable. Contact nursery managers in your local area or who work in different areas if you work for a day nursery chain.
You can cast your net wider and make the most of social media platforms to build your supportive network. LinkedIn and Facebook are perfect for finding groups with the same goals and challenges.
If you don’t already have a LinkedIn profile, it might be time for you to step into the world of professional social media and build your connections. With a world-wide reach, your support network can be from all corners of the globe.
Think about a delegation strategy
Leadership and management positions have many spinning plates. You are but one person, delegation of tasks is a must. But which tasks?
Well, firstly, you’ll need to consider what you can ‘delegate’ to software and nursery management tools designed to take the strain of everyday tasks. Why manually sieve through data when you can see your setting’s financial forecasting on an easy-to-interpret graph?
Not a manager yet? Start to research the features available with nursery software so when you do secure the position, you’re good to go!
When delegating tasks to a team, it can be handy to think about:
- People: Do they have the capacity to complete the task?
- Training: Are they suitably trained to do the task well?
- Details: Do you know the exact details of the task, and can you measure its success?
We already know that childcare attracts a specific type of person- someone who does an internal (or external) cheer when a child achieves a milestone or a family truly feels heard and supported with their child’s needs.
Nursery management positions increase the potential impact you can have on families. Extending beyond singular families to whole communities.
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