Apprentice Nursery Practitioner - Millbrook
Job overview
University Hospital Southampton NHS Foundation Trust is delighted to offer a fantastic opportunity to work with us.
Please see below for a detailed job description of the role.
Main duties of the job
Are you a kind, caring, and fun-loving individual? We're looking for enthusiastic people, who love working with children, to join our team at Trust Taplins Nursery as an Apprentice Nursery Practitioner. This is a fantastic opportunity to kick-start a fulfilling career in Early Years education.
Our Trust Taplins Nursery is located at Western Community Hospital in Southampton. You'll work alongside a friendly and experienced team, learning how to provide excellent care and education to children aged 3 months to 5 years, all while completing an Early Years Apprenticeship.
Taplins operates two purpose-built day nurseries that support our local NHS staff. As part of the UHS family, you’ll enjoy great benefits like a generous holiday allowance and access to a discount scheme.
Our nurseries are open Monday to Friday from 7:00 am to 6:30 pm, offering a variety of shift patterns within these hours. We care for up to 52 children daily in our well-equipped facilities, which include spacious outdoor areas. We take pride in fostering strong, supportive relationships with the children and families we serve.
Working for our organisation
As one of the largest acute teaching Trusts in England, we offer learning and development opportunities to help you achieve the career you aspire to.
Specific to this role we are open to discussing flexibility in the hours that you work. Please talk to us at the interview about the flexibility you need, and we will explore what’s possible for the role and service. UHS employees can access a range of NHS discounts, are entitled to a minimum of 35 days paid holiday (pro rata), and we offer a generous pension scheme.
Southampton is an attractive place to live and work situated on the south coast, with an international airport and direct trains to London. The New Forest National Park and beaches of the Jurassic coast are also right on our doorstep. The city offers living costs 20% lower than London and 14 schools rated outstanding by Ofsted.
Detailed job description and main responsibilities
Our apprenticeship is currently being offered part-time over 28.5 hours a week. You will typically spend 20% of these hours studying and 80% working in our Nursery. There may be the opportunity to increase the apprenticeship to full-time hours in the future.
Key Responsibilities- Work alongside experienced members of our nursery team learning to care for small groups of children.
- Learn to promote each child’s development and have lots of fun doing this! Reading stories, giving cuddles, pretending to have tea parties, finding bugs in the garden, painting and lots more!
- Complete an Early Years Apprenticeship course giving you a great qualification to start your career.
- To be calm, kind and caring, and have an enthusiastic approach to working with children and their families.
- To be committed and reliable.
- We are a busy service and teamwork is essential to meet each child’s needs, so you’ll need to be ready to work closely with others.
You’ll need to be prepared to work hard to learn both in nursery and in your college course- always improving ourselves and our nursery is very important to us.
If this is you, we’d love to meet you!
If you are already an NHS employee and are applying for an Apprentice - Annex 21 vacancy you may be entitled to pay protection.
Pay protection applies where the role you are applying for is at the same AFC band or higher, and you would receive less in pay compared with your current salary due to annex 21.
Please see the NHS Employers Apprenticeship Pay Guidance and FAQs for further information and eligible criteria:
Apprenticeship pay guidance and FAQs | NHS Employers
These roles are funded by the Government Apprenticeship Scheme and do not attract visa sponsorship.- You may be eligible if you have been ordinarily resident in the UK for at least the previous 3 years.
- You must also have permission from the UK government to live in the UK (not for educational purposes) or have obtained pre-settled or settled status under the EU Settlement Scheme.
- You have right to work in the UK for the duration of the apprenticeship
Person specification
Qualifications, knowledge and experience
Essential criteria- Good standard of secondary education with literacy and numeracy skills demonstrable to GCSE pass level or equivalent standard
- Willingness and ability to undertake Level 3 Qualification in Early Years and Childcare
- Willingness and ability to undertake Food Safety training
- Demonstrates enthusiastic approach to working with children and learning practically within nursery
- Able to provide relevant activity ideas and ability to care for children
- Current paediatric and/or first aid at work certificate
- Current food hygiene certificate
- Recent previous experiences of working with 3 months – 5-year-olds within a childcare setting.
Trust Values
Essential criteria- Patients First
- Always Improving
- Working Together
Please be advised that this vacancy may close earlier than stated if we receive a large number of applications. We will not accept any applications or queries via agencies, under any circumstances.
For more information about our Trust
https://careers.uhs.nhs.uk
Getting to work - our travel promise
Getting to work should be as easy as possible and that’s why we have introduced the UHS travel promise – a commitment from the Trust that we will provide reasonable travel options for every member of staff. Every member of staff can apply for a permit to use our park & ride facility.Eligibility for on-site parking is dependent on the nature and requirement of the role. All staff can also access a range of discounted benefits relating to travel including reduced price bus tickets, purchase of salary sacrifice bikes and ultra-low emission cars.
Our commitment to equality
Equality remains at the centre of our policymaking, service delivery, and employment practice, giving all employees equal opportunity to develop, apply for promotions, and have working arrangements that enable them to achieve a manageable work-life balance.
UHS actively promotes a work environment free from harassment and discrimination and provides training for managers and staff to ensure this happens. We also closely monitor recruitment activity, training, development, and employment practices to ensure equality of practice with regard to race, colour, ethnic or national origin, religion or belief, gender, sexual orientation, disability, marital status and age.
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