Nursery & Crèche Assistants – Bank Staff
Brighton & Hove City Council’s Best Start Hub Nurseries provide high quality care and educational opportunities for children aged from birth to 5 years. Our nurseries include: Acorn Nursery- Portslade, Bright Start Nursery – Brighton city centre, Cherry Tree Nursery - Hollingdean, Jump Start Nursery - Moulsecoomb, and Tarnerland Nursery School – Brighton city centre, as well as the Jeanne saunders centre which provides specaislist nursery provision.
We operate Monday to Friday, between 8am and 6pm and are very proud of our ‘good’ and ‘outstanding’ Ofsted reports. All of our nurseries create environments that encourage children to explore, learn and play. We care for children from a wide range of backgrounds including those with special educational needs.
We are looking for nursery & creche assistants to join our team as bank staff. Early years qualifications are not essential however demonstrating an interest in working with children is essential.
Applicants must have some experience of working with children aged under 5 years; have confidence when communicating with adults and children alike; have good literacy skills; have the ability to work flexibly in busy environments and demonstrate an understanding of children’s needs.
The role is to work with children to support their care and learning in an early years nursery or creche. Duties will include ensuring a welcoming, safe and stimulating environment; providing quality care and educational learning opportunities; meeting individual needs and sometimes providing 1:1 support for children with additional needs.
We feel this is an excellent opportunity for those looking to gain experience in early years or gain a qualification in the sector. We support all our staff with ongoing development and training opportunities where relevant.
Our Bank Staff are called upon to work ad-hoc hours and whilst regular hours at this stage cannot be guaranteed, experience has shown us that if the work is available there could well be the possibility of regular work over time.
How to apply
Please read our Apply for a job at the council pages carefully. They give you all the guidance you need to complete your application as well as information on what will happen after you’ve submitted your application and at interview.
As part of your application, you will need to provide your education and career history and answer some application/shortlisting questions. Your answers to the application/shortlisting questions are the most important part of your application as they will be used in the shortlisting process to assess whether you meet the essential requirements for the role that are set out in the person specification and to decide whether you should be offered an interview. Before you start your application, please read our Shortlisting questions guidance (brighton-hove.gov.uk) as this gives important advice which will increase your chance of success in the shortlisting process.
AI advice for candidates
We are interested in hearing about your experience and skills in your own words. While we value people who know how to use AI, we ask that you minimise using it in your application.
We are keen to hear how your experience and skills align to our values and the skills and experience needed to perform well in our roles with clear real examples from you. To support you in this, we have guidance on using the STAR model which can help you ensure you are telling us your whole story. We also provide clarity on the skills we are looking for in our adverts and in the job description/person specification attached to each job advert.
All the applications we receive are read by at least two hiring managers and we do not use AI in this process. Our experience of reading applications is that those that have heavily used AI contain generic paragraphs that are strikingly similar to other applicants’ responses. This makes it extremely difficult to differentiate between applications, and doesn't give us enough evidence of your individual skills. There is a risk that we will therefore not be able to shortlist you. Instead, we recommend you ensure your application stands out by presenting clear examples of your actual skills and experiences in your own words.
Additional information
Your starting salary will be pro rata if the above position is less than 37 hours or term-time only.
Please note that this post is exempt from the Rehabilitation of Offenders Act 1974, and is subject to a Disclosure & Barring Service (DBS) Check.
We are a workplace that supports flexibility and employee wellbeing in the way we work whilst providing the best service for our customers. Team and service working arrangements are designed to support both employee work life balance and team collaboration. These would be part of your individual working arrangements alongside any personal preference agreed with your manager in advance of joining. Your contractual location will be the designated council office for your team and travel to and from your contractual location would be at your own expense.
