home  |  teddies careers  |  my day at teddies  |  assistant manager life

A day in the life of an Assistant manager

I've been Assistant manager at Teddies Nurseries for about a year now. As part of this role I'm also Head of unit for the Learning Centre, which caters for children from 2 and a half years up until they leave the nursery to go to school.

It's actually quite difficult to describe an 'average' working day because it can vary so widely. A lot of my time is spent leading the Learning Centre team on the day to day care of the children in the Unit. I enjoy the "hands on" nature of my role - I am able to spend a lot of my time in the unit running activities and playing with the children. It's also great to give my staff all the day to day support that they need - and even when I busy doing 'management' tasks I always ensure that the team is ok and know what they're doing.

I rely on my team as much as they rely on me - together we plan the daily activities on a week by week basis. We use the SMILE (Stimulating, Motivating, Imaginative Learning Environment) curriculum as a guide as well as our own knowledge and experience. All of the team have their own areas of expertise so it's great to use of all those and put together an action packed week for the children!

As part of my role I take responsibility for ensuring that the key carer system is running smoothly not only in my unit but across the nursery. It's vital that parents receive daily feedback on what their child has been up to and how they are developing. To achieve this, I allocate children a key carer who monitors each child and then provides the necessary feedback.

I spend a lot of my time in supporting the manager in her role, particularly in the recruitment of new staff in the nursery. After attending a recruitment and selection course at head office I was raring to start interviewing prospective staff members. I really enjoy this part of the job. Meeting new people and finding out past experience and qualifications as well as what they can contribute to the nursery team is really exciting. Equally, I assist in inducting new staff members once they've started with us - and it's great to see how they soon begin to master our practices and start gelling with the children!

When the Nursery manager is on annual leave or out for the day then I take responsibility for the daily running of the nursery. This entails getting completely stuck into the management side of things, and after a year working alongside my manager I feel quite confident in taking charge! Much of my time during these periods is spent looking at the occupancy of the nursery - looking at what sessions we have available and what action we need to take to fill them. A major part of this is showing potential parents and children around the nursery - making sure they have a chance to find out about how the units are structured, the facilities, the curriculum, our diet and nutrition policy as well as how we approach helping children to settle in. It's great to show off the nursery and get parental feedback on their first impressions.

Above all, the part of the job I enjoy the most is supporting my team and the rest of the staff not only in their day to day roles but also in their professional development. Having worked my way up from being a nursery nurse I know what opportunities there are within Teddies. For me personally I am about to embark on the Traineeship Programme that has been designed to help an Assistant manager become a Nursery manager. And from there who knows what else?