Nursery Nurse - Term Time - Special Needs Position

An exciting opportunity has come up at First Leap Specialist Observation and Assessment Nursery at Foreland Fields School for a Nursery Nurse to join our team. First Leap Nursery is a specialist intervention nursery located at Foreland Fields School. It's main purpose is to provide early educational support to children who have complex difficulties with their learning and development as well as providing support and advice to parents and carers regarding the possibility of an assessment for an Educational, Health and Care Plan to support them throughout their childhood.
Pre-School children who have been identified as having complex differences and difficulties are referred into us by a specialist teacher from the Specialist Teaching and Learning Service (STLS) or Portage in order to access our service where we can provide specialist interventions on or off site. These interventions are carried out by our specialist team within the nursery. The placement is normally on a dual placement basis meaning that the children attend our setting as well as their mainstream setting during the week.
This exciting opportunity has come about during a period of change for the nursery where we are starting to operate in a more "outreach" based model where practitioners go out to mainstream nurseries to support rather than children coming into the nursery on Foreland Fields site. We are starting to move towards this structure throughout the next academic year so that by September 2025 we will aim to provide an outreach provision 95% of the time with only the really complex children who may not be able to access a mainstream nursery accessing the intervention at Foreland Fields School.
Ideally, we are looking for someone who already has some experience of supporting children who have a diagnosis of ASD or complex learning needs, but we would welcome applications from candidates with knowledge and understanding of early child development, who are keen to learn. The applicant would be expected to work towards providing outreach support to mainstream nurseries having undergone training and fully supported by the nursery team. There will be plenty of opportunity for the successful applicant to work alongside more experienced members of staff prior to being expected to do this independently.
The First Leap Nursery Team are passionate about the work they do, they are a fabulous team and are extremely supportive of one another in their roles. They are excited to continue to build a team around them as they move towards this new approach.
Hours are 5 days a week term time only:
8:30-3:45 Mon, Tues, Wed, Fri
Thurs - 8:30-2:45/4.45pm on alternate weeks.
5 INSET days

Foreland Fields School is a Day Special School for pupils with Profound, Severe and Complex Needs (PSCN), many of whom also have Autistic Spectrum Disorder.
We provide for 200+ pupils aged 3-19 in five departments, Nursery, Infants, Juniors (KS2) Secondary (KS3) and KS4/6th Form. In addition, we have satellite classes at Garlinge Primary School, Hartsdown Academy and East Kent College.
We encourage all of our employees to further their career development and we respect initiative and ambition. We are committed to performance management, staff training and coaching. The successful candidate will embrace the special ethos of the School, and the role will provide an opportunity to take Foreland Fields School into this next exciting phase and beyond.
Foreland Fields School is committed to the safeguarding and well-being of children therefore all successful candidates will be subject to an Enhanced DBS check and references. We will also complete an online search on all shortlisted candidates.