What is a Nursery Assistant / Practitioner?
A Nursery Assistant is a childcare professional who supports the daily activities of a nursery or preschool, ensuring a safe, nurturing, and engaging environment for young children, typically from birth to five years old. They assist with supervising children, planning and implementing educational activities, and taking care of personal needs.
Nursery Assistants observe children’s development, communicate with parents, and collaborate with other staff members to create a positive and inclusive atmosphere. They play a crucial role in fostering children’s social, emotional, and intellectual growth while adhering to health and safety standards.
Your responsibilities
- Contributing to a programme of activities to the age range of children in your area
- Liaising with and supporting parents and other family members
- Ensuring mealtimes are a time of pleasant social sharing
- Observing children and taking notes of any problematic behaviour
- Providing a high-quality environment to meet the needs of individual children from differing cultures and religious background and stages of development
What You'll need
Core skills
- Communication skills
- Empathy and understanding of children's needs
- Organisational skills
- Time management skills
- Literacy and numeracy
- First aid
- Caring and nurturing attitude
What You'll Gain
Transferable skills
- Effective time management
- Patience
- Communication skills including the ability to understand different levels with different ages, groups and abilities
- Ability to remain calm under pressure
- Observant and good attention to detail
What You'll Use
Key skills
English
- Communicating with both children and staff
- Writing plans and records
- Reading to children
Maths
- Planning numeracy based activities for children
- Working out staff to child ratios
- Using measurements for medication
IT
- Using software to record and update information
Role opportunities
These are some possible roles you may consider in your career journey. Discuss with your Inspiro Coach for further guidance.
nursery assistant / practitioner
nursery nurse / educator
room leader / Team Leader
deputy Nursery Manager
nursery manager
regional / area manager
What is a Nursery Assistant / Practitioner?
What is a Nursery Nurse / Educator?
What is a Room Leader / Team Leader?
What is a Deputy Nursery Manager?
What is a Nursery Manager?
What is a Regional / Area Manager?
Other related routes
National Careers Website
The National Careers website is a government database that provides information for a job you are looking to explore.
Early Years Sector Roles
Use our Sector Roles map to see if there is a role within your chosen sector that you are interested in.
Resources
Career Development Handbook
Click on the image
to download the
career development handbook
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