Nursery Assistant

Drayton House Nursery
Nursery Practitioner - Level 3
Hours: 27 hours/week (3 days x 9-hour shifts)
Salary:£20,343.96
Founded in 1943 and set within a beautiful Georgian house, Drayton House Nursery is a long-established and highly regarded setting in the heart of Guildford, known for delivering exceptional childcare within a warm, nurturing, and family-focused environment.

Our nursery offers a genuine “home from home” atmosphere, with cosy, welcoming rooms where children aged 3 months to 5 years feel safe, secure, and truly valued. We place great importance on building close, trusting partnerships with parents, working collaboratively to support each child’s individual needs, development, and overall wellbeing.

With purposely small class sizes, every child benefits from meaningful attention and care, supporting focused learning while helping children build confidence and independence. We also maintain strong, established relationships with local private and state schools, helping to ease each child’s transition to their next stage of education. Adding to the warmth of our setting is our much-loved nursery mascot, Berty the dog, who brings smiles every day.

Conveniently located just 15–20 minutes from Guildford town centre, our nursery offers easy access to local shops, restaurants, and the historic Guildford Castle, making it an ideal setting for both families and staff.

Why Join Us?

At Family First, we value our team members and offer a comprehensive benefits package, including:

Referral programme: Refer a friend and earn up to £750

Employee Childcare Discounts: 75% off nursery fees for our team members

Annual Leave: Starting at 24 days, plus a paid day off for your birthday and bank holidays 

Health and Wellbeing Programme: Confidential employee assistance helpline available 

Development: Tailored learning and development opportunities to support your career growth

Excellent Transport Links 

As Nursery Practitioner, you will:

Ensure that each child’s individual needs are met and a high standard of professional care and education is delivered in a caring, safe and secure environment in which all children can play, learn and develop

Observe, assess and plan an interesting, stimulating and challenging range of early years activities which supports each child’s individual learning and development needs and abilities

Engage as a professional member of the team, exhibiting a flexible attitude and willingness to develop new skills

Ensure that company policies and procedures are read, applied, reviewed regularly and adhered to by all

Follow risk assessments diligently and report all health and safety matters to management

Enhance the all-around daily needs of children, including their physical, intellectual, social and emotional development

*Duties and responsibilities in this job description are not exhaustive or restrictive, changes and other duties relevant to this post may be added.

As Nursery Practitioner, you will need:

Full and relevant Level 3 childcare qualification - essential

Fluent in written and spoken English - essential

Over 1 year’s experience of working in Early Years - desirable

Knowledge of the Statutory framework for the EYFS and regulatory requirements - desirable.

We are committed to safeguarding and protecting the welfare of children and expect all staff and volunteers to share this commitment.  A Disclosure and Barring Service Certificate will be required for all posts. This post will be subject to enhanced checks as part of our Safeguarding Duty.

The Drayton House Nursery and Preschool is part of the Family First Group where we take great care to treat everyone as a person, with equal rights and responsibilities to any other individual, whether they are an adult or a child. We are committed to providing equality of opportunity and anti-discriminatory practice for all children and families according to their individual needs. Discrimination on the grounds of gender, age, race, religion or belief, marriage or civil partnership, disability, sexual orientation, gender reassignment, pregnancy or maternity, ethnic or national origin, or political belief has no place within the Family First Group