Setting Support Officer - Early Years Team

How you'll make a difference:

The Early Years Team is responsible for delivering sustainable early years practice that is forward thinking, responsive to the needs of the family and changes children’s lives for the better.

Working closely with your allocated early years providers, you will support them in meeting the needs of all children by providing ongoing training and advice.

What you will be doing:

• You will provide information, advice and guidance to early years providers to ensure they are able to provide high quality education and care in line with early years foundation stage (EYFS) and OFSTED guidelines.
• Visiting early years settings and childminders, you will provide support, reflection and professional challenge. Some may require an enhanced offer through joint planning, development, monitoring and reporting of support plans.
• Working with colleagues, you will plan, deliver and evaluate high quality professional development, training, networking and other opportunities for early year practitioners across the local authority.
• Using your own ideas, creativity, innovation and experiences, you will lead on projects, initiatives and curriculum development opportunities to support improvement across the early years’ service.
• Regularly, you will work with your team and across the wider department to support settings to meet the needs of all children through good inclusive practice. This includes contributing to multi-agency meetings such as 0-25, early years inclusion and Transition Support Fund panels.
• It will be key for you to support the development of good safeguarding practices across the sector and to follow the local authority’s safeguarding procedures as appropriate. You will also support early years providers with the safeguarding audit and bi-annual safeguarding in practice visits.

What we need from you:

• You must hold a relevant childcare qualification e.g. NVQ3 in early years or childcare, or a teaching qualification.
• We require you to have considerable experience of working with children in an early years setting and those children who have special educational needs or are vulnerable to disadvantage or underachievement.
• Given the elements of this role, you will have a good understanding of the statutory requirements of the EYFS curriculum including its assessment requirements and the statutory requirements for pre-school settings.
• You will have well developed interpersonal and communication skills to build relationships and engage successfully with contacts and customers, for example early years providers, parents and carers.
• You will have experience of developing and presenting training and briefings to providers and/or other professionals.
• You will have demonstrable experience of meeting service standards, targets and deadlines, including report writing, presentation and IT skills.

• This is a part-time role, working 22.2 hours per week. Your salary will be pro-rated to hours worked.
• This role is hybrid, with a mixture of working at our office in Yate and working from home.
• Please note that due to the nature of this role, it is a requirement of employment that an enhanced Disclosure and Barring Service (DBS) check is obtained.
• You will be expected to travel throughout the authority and surrounding area so you must have a full, valid driving licence with regular access to a vehicle.
• Business insurance will need to be added to your insurance policy.

Interviews will be held on 4th and 5th June 2025.

• As part of our benefits package, you will receive generous annual leave (pro rata), employee wellbeing support and you will have access to a range of staff discounts, including eye tests, travel, shopping and leisure activities.
• We recognise that our diverse team of skilled and dedicated people make us a great place to work. We welcome applications from everyone and ensure that individuals are selected, promoted and developed on the basis of their merits and abilities.
• We know our team work best when they have balance in their lives, and we offer genuine flexibility to help them achieve that work/life balance.
• We value our staff as individuals, investing in their careers and we are recognised for the quality, breadth and depth of our training and development offer, which helps make the greatest long-term difference in work.
• We are committed to safeguarding and promoting the safety and welfare of children, young people and vulnerable adults. Ensuring all our staff are given right skills, knowledge and support to recognise and respond effectively to potential abuse or neglect.

• We're building and shaping communities which people are proud of.
• We're working with the most vulnerable in our community to help them achieve what they want in life.
• We're investing in our schools to ensure every child and young person in South Gloucestershire achieves their full potential.

We've achieved a great deal, but we need talented and dedicated people to ensure we continue to make a difference.

We’re making a difference, be part of it!

To view the full job description, please click this link: Setting Support Officer - Job Description