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A day in the life of a Nursery manager

I've been manager at Teddies for two years, a 50-place nursery with a brilliant team, great facilities and most importantly a great bunch of staff, children and parents. Every working day is different - which is probably what I like most about my job, however, it does make it pretty tough to describe a typical day!

I tend to get into work about 7:45am - its great to have a few minutes while the nursery is quiet to go through the post and see what's on that day. This means I can then spend some time assisting the units with serving breakfast and welcoming children and parents. I can catch up with any parents who need to speak to me and be aware of any special needs or other issues that arise. It's also an opportunity for me to see how the staff are getting on, and lead by example by getting stuck into a few nappy changes!

I then move onto the various tasks I am responsible for in order to ensure that the nursery is meeting the children's and parent's needs and providing high quality care and customer service. One task is occupancy - currently our occupancy is 90% but as a team we're determined to fill up our remaining sessions - the weekly population report keeps us updated on where we stand. A couple of weeks ago we held an open day at the nursery for existing, and prospective, parents and children as well as anyone else who wanted to come along. It was a successful day, with various activities, including the all important bouncy castle! Open days are a good opportunity for prospective parents to chat to staff, have a look around the nursery and see what we are all about whilst the children have some fun! As a result of the day we've had a couple of new registrations and also some show round requests for parents to see the nursery and how it functions on a day to day basis.

Inevitably at some point during the day I will deal with some sort of staff matters whether it is individual meetings, planning for team meetings, recruitment or carrying out performance reviews. Teddies' is great in the amount of resource available to deal with any issue that arises - the HR toolkit on site is invaluable and the HR team at head office are on hand throughout the day to answer any questions and offer advice and administrative support. This week I'm working on recruiting a nursery nurse for the Learning Centre. We've so far had five applications and most look fairly promising, so I'll arrange interviews with all of them - I tend to involve the Assistant manager who has attended the recruitment and selection training - its great to get another view and to give her some experience.

For me, my team makes the nursery and as a manager I strive to support them and their continued development. We're lucky to have a couple of strong Heads of Unit who are keen to progress so I'm currently working with them on training plans as to what they need to work on to progress to the Assistant manager level. I might loose them to another one of our nurseries but it will at least create promotion opportunities for other staff members.

I also deal with any maintenance issues that arise within the nursery. We are currently awaiting a complete refurbishment but in the meantime there are still a few essentials to be done in order to meet health and safety standards. This entails liasing with the property team at head office and my Regional manager.

Our Regional manager usually visits every couple of weeks, she currently looks after 12 nurseries but is never too busy to return a call or offer some advice. Her role is to support me and the team in the running of the nursery - some of this is done through keeping us focused on what our occupancy, quality and cost targets are. Each year we use all of our performance reviews, the current year's results and outstanding objectives to put together a nursery operational plan - its good to have input into what we will be expected to achieve in the following year. Our Regional manager is also there to offer guidance and support on any other matter and all the nursery managers from our region meet on a monthly basis for a progress update and to discuss what is happening in the business. Its good to share experiences and find out what other nurseries do - as well as have a nice bit of lunch in the process!

On top of all my nursery responsibilities I also act as buddy manager for any new managers that are starting within the region. I assist with their induction and offer on-going support during their first few weeks in their role. Its good for me to go back to basics and go over policies and procedures as well as helping the new manager to settle in!