Monkey Puzzle East Finchley are looking for a fantastic Early Years Teacher for our VIPs (Very Important Preschoolers) to join our nursery team and help to provide outstanding education and early years childcare for our children.

Our preschool children are unbelievably amazing. Every day you will be wowed by the range of creativity, imagination, curiosity and kindness that these children display. Their unlimited capacity for fun and play is infectious. We are very lucky to have 2 preschool rooms arranged into younger and older age groups. As our qualified EYT you would be expected to work across both rooms. Preschoolers are 3-5 years old and often move up from our Toddler room.

Although no 2 days are the same with our VIPs, a typical morning will involve: breakfast, circle time, free play (including a range of activities set up), rolling snacks, garden time, lunch and nap time with a similar structure in the afternoon. Opportunities are taken throughout all of these activities to encourage independence, self care, resilience, gross & fine motor skills as well as social skills. Our VIPs love messy play – anything they can do to get dirty -especially the mud kitchen. Other favourite activities include role play, playing in the tree house, music and dance. We also have quieter times when they sit and draw, read a book or get involved in a craft activity. Some of our children show a real interest in phonics, letters and numbers and your role will be to encourage and develop this in all our children and prepare them for their transition to reception. The preschoolers go outside every day and at least once per week the children eat their lunch outside before settling down for their afternoon nap wrapped up snug and warm in their sleeping bags in our outdoor forest school den.

Our VIPS love to get out and about and we constantly look for opportunities to engage children with the local community, this can include trips to the shop to buy baking ingredients, visits on the bus to the local care home, spending time in the local library, dropping off donations to the food bank or even just pooing into the local coffee shop for a baby chino. We have external providers who come in to deliver music and sports activities for our VIPs every week. In addition, we also have our very own Forest School where children are taken to the local woods by our Forest School Leaders – where they engage in a whole array of activities whilst learning about nature and how to respect it.

Why Us?

Our vision is to create a future generation who are kind to each other, their communities and the planet, as well as building children’s confidence and curiosity to explore the world around them. Working as a team, we create strong minded, independent thinkers through a rich variety of learning experiences. We promote high aspirations, encouraging children to take risks and push boundaries. We teach respect, tolerance, social justice, empathy and kindness and we foster a love of nature and respect for the environment. To achieve all this we need caring practitioners with a can do attitude. We value our team and demonstrate this through our benefits and rewards package. Working as part of our team you will benefit from:

  • A salary up to £32,000 per year
  • Use of our Zen-Den during lunch breaks
  • Breakfast bar
  • Company pension
  • £1000 Refer a Friend scheme (T&CS apply)
  • Access to store / online / retail / holiday discounts
  • Free on-site parking
  • Cycle to work scheme
  • Employee Wellness programme including mental health support
  • Additional annual leave e.g. birthday bonus/festive fun day
  • Free or heavily discounted childcare
  • Uniform provided along with a welcome goodie bag
  • Company events including Winter and Summer Socials
  • Excellent transport links
  • Employee mentoring programme
  • Free Counselling helpline
  • Flexible working options
  • Monthly employee recognition awards £100 bonus
  • End of years awards (eg spa days / additional weeks salary)
  • 2 Inset training days per year
  • Continued opportunities for professional growth and access to our online training platform
  • Daily / adhoc rewards such as Treats for Feats

Key Responsibilites

  • Promote the delivery of high-quality teaching and learning opportunities.
  • Promote a positive attitude amongst other practitioners in having high expectations of all children and their abilities to achieve their full potential.
  • Establish and sustain a safe, welcoming, purposeful, stimulating and encouraging environment where children feel confident and secure, and are able to develop and learn.
  • Support the use of observation and other strategies to monitor children’s activity, development and progress, encouraging use of information in planning and improving practice and provision.
  • Plan and provide safe and appropriate activities and play opportunities in indoor, outdoor and in out-of-setting contexts, which enables children to develop and learn.
  • Use a range of resources suitable for children’s ages, interests and abilities, taking account of diversity and promoting equality and inclusion.
  • Actively support the development of children’s language and communication skills.
  • Promote children’s rights, equality, inclusion and anti-discriminatory practice in all behavioural skills.
  • Promote a safe environment and support practices that promote children’s health, safety and physical, mental and emotional well-being.
  • Ensure all practitioners understand how to recognize when a child is in danger or at risk of harm and know how to act to protect them.
  • Support the process of effective assessment, recording and reporting on progress in children’s development and learning and use this as a basis for differentiating provision.
  • Encourage all practitioners to talk to children, including giving feedback to help children understand what they have achieved.
  • Support a positive and proactive culture amongst practitioners in being able to identify and support children whose progress, development or wellbeing is affected by changes or difficulties in their personal circumstances, ensuring staff know when to refer them to colleagues for specialist support.

Essentials

  • Only candidates with a full and relevant Early Years Teaching Qualification or with Qualified Teacher Status will be considered.

Great to haves

  • Food and Hygiene Level 2
  • Prevent Duty
  • FGM
  • Safeguarding
  • Paediatric First Aid

Apply Now

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  • In order to protect the public, the post you have applied for is exempt from certain provisions of the Rehabilitation of Offenders Act 1974. You are therefore required to disclose all and any past or pending cautions or convictions, whether spent or otherwise, unless it is either a “protected caution” or a “protected conviction” under the terms of the Rehabilitation of Offenders Act 1974 (Exceptions) Order 1975. All information provided will be kept in the strictest confidence and only used for the purpose of assessing your suitability for the post you have applied for. Please specify details of all and any past or pending cautions or convictions, whether spent or otherwise, except for protected cautions or convictions. If you have no past or pending cautions or convictions, please specify “None”.]
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