Nursery Assistant

The Role

At Westbourne, children in the Nursery learn through creative play, absorbing phonics through art, maths through music, speech via cooking, and science in our woods. The curriculum is designed to teach children amazing skills using educational, fun, interesting and confidence-building methods.

Your key responsibility will be to work successfully as part of a team to provide a high standard of care for all children in the nursery. You will contribute to a programme of activities that meet the individual needs and interests of children and the Early Years Foundation Stage Framework.

You will have experience of working in a nursery setting and ideally have an up-to-date Paediatric First Aid and Food Hygiene Certificate. It is essential that you have a strong understanding of the Early Years Foundation Stage Framework and that you hold a full and relevant Level 3 Early Years qualification.

We pride ourselves on involving parents, guardians, and the wider family, throughout their child’s time at Westbourne; it is therefore vital that you build strong working relationships with all members of the Westbourne community.

The successful candidate will join a team of dedicated and passionate practitioners. The role is busy and challenging and will provide an enormous amount of satisfaction to someone with a genuine passion for educating children.

The hours for this position will be Monday to Friday 7.45am – 3.30pm (we could also consider a start time of 8am – please indicate on the application form the hours you are looking for).

This is a fixed term role from November 2024 until 4th July 2025.

We can offer:

• Strong, supportive staff team
• Membership of support staff pension scheme
• Use of the school’s facilities – swimming pool and sports facilities, subsidised staff yoga class
• Cycle to Work Scheme
• Employee Assistance Programme
• Lunch provided during term time
• On-site parking

Please apply by completing the application form. CVs may be attached, but not in place of the application form. Please return completed applications to Robyn Aubrey at hr@westbournehouse.org

Closing date: 6th October 2024

We reserve the right to interview and offer to a strong candidate prior to the closing date. For this reason, early applications are encouraged.

Westbourne House is committed to safeguarding and promoting the welfare of children and expects all staff and volunteers to share this commitment. All applicants must be willing to undergo child protection screening appropriate to the post, including checks with current and past employers, online checks, the Disclosure & Barring Service, overseas checks and the Secretary of State’s Prohibition List from Teaching and Management.

About the School

Westbourne House is situated just to the east of Chichester in beautiful grounds of over 100 acres. There are approximately 360 boys and girls aged 2½–13. Most children go on to major public schools across the South.

The school enjoys outstanding facilities. Teaching is extremely well resourced, with excellent teaching rooms, the majority equipped with interactive whiteboards; there are also sets of laptops, which can be booked for class-based work. There are rooms for Art, Ceramics, ICT, Design Technology and Food Technology, a separate Science block and Music School, as well as a modern, 300-seat theatre/assembly hall. The school also has a large (30-acre) lake on the north boundary for kayaking.

Academic standards are high, with consistently outstanding Common Entrance results together with an excellent scholarship record; totalling 140 over the last five years.

Westbourne House uses the High Performance Learning philosophy to guide all pupils in becoming good learners. The school believes that all pupils have the potential to perform at the highest level regardless of their current performance level. The Advanced Cognitive Performance Characteristics (ACPs) and Values, Attitudes and Attributes (VAAs) of HPL are the “thinking” and “behaviour” characteristic, and these are delivered specifically and systematically throughout the curriculum.

The Music and Drama departments also excel consistently: all children are involved in school productions; a large number are members of school choirs, and there are regular concerts.

Saturday school consists of sports matches, as well as optional enrichment activities, such as kayaking and coding.

There is a wide variety of sport on offer, and a large number of teams represent the school most Wednesdays, Thursdays and Saturdays. As well as extensive playing fields, there is a 25-metre swimming pool, dance studio, sports hall, squash courts and a full-sized astro-turf pitch.

There are around 100 boarders, many of whom board for two or three nights in one of seven houses on the school grounds. The school offers full-time boarding, allowing the children to further enjoy the beautiful facilities and grounds the school has to offer.