Quality and Regulatory Specialist page is loaded
Quality and Regulatory Specialist
Apply remote type Hybrid locations Rushden Support Office, Northamptonshire Rushden NN10 6BS time type Full time posted on Posted 2 Days Ago time left to apply End Date: February 28, 2025 (14 days left to apply) job requisition id JR-116530
Quality and Regulatory Specialist
Permanent / Full Time / Mon – Fri / 40 hours
£DOE plus car allowance
Field base role visiting our nurseries – Covering South of UK
~Travel and Driving Licence is essential
Closing Date: 28th February 2025
Purpose of the Role:
The Quality and Regulatory Specialist (Q&RS) is responsible for providing assurance to the company that nurseries are fully compliant with the regulatory requirements for care and education in England and Scotland. This includes ensuring that nurseries are fully compliant with Health & Safety and Safeguarding/Child Protection policies and procedures in line with Bright Horizon’s commitment to keeping everyone safe.
The Q&RS provides independent assurance through conducting internal audits, working in collaboration with appropriate stakeholders in operations, HR, Safeguarding and PD teams. The Q&RS will support learning and development of training and hands-on support strategies to address emerging trends from inspection outcomes and internal Q&RS audits, identifying recommendations for improvement, measuring impact and developing pro-active actions for mitigating risk.
The Q&RS will advise, support and coach nursery managers and other colleagues in Child Protection and Safeguarding best practice in collaboration with the Divisional Safeguarding Consultant.
The Q&RS will advise, support and coach nursery managers and other colleagues in Special Educational Needs and Disabilities best practice in collaboration with the Head of Pedagogical Research and Development (SEND).
The Q&RS will support the Head of Q&RS in general quality improvement work as directed, including but not limited to, carrying out nursery visits, inspection, training and development of relevant quality standards reporting systems.
What We Can Offer You:
* Flexible working and holiday entitlements
* Discounted childcare
* Quarterly Employee Appreciation Weeks
* Annual gala award evening
* Fantastic range of discounts on high street retailers, grocery stores, cinema tickets, holidays and more
* Wide range of wellbeing resources, supporting our teams for the ups and downs of daily life
Why Bright Horizons?
We’ve been voted Great Place to Work for the last 17 consecutive years, as well as being awarded the newly created Great Place for Wellbeing and Great Place for Women 2023.
Our support functions enable our nurseries to deliver the best possible care and education to over 10,000 children across the UK. Through this support, our nurseries can deliver excellence – with 98% of our 300+ portfolio being rated Good or Outstanding by Ofsted.
We’re on a mission to change the future for children, families, and the people we work with, and are committed to progressive working values like flexibility, work-life balance, and wellbeing.
Key Tasks and Responsibilities:
* Complete accurate Quality and Regulatory Standards audits and Inspection Focus Visits within allocated time frame. Effectively communicate the key findings and actions verbally and in writing, to improve quality.
* Produce accurate and appropriately evidenced audits and written reports which have transparent judgements, based on sound evidence, and are aligned to relevant regulatory inspection frameworks.
* Provide pedagogical and organisational leadership advice to nursery managers and teams.
* Promote HEART culture, values, and behaviours, to drive quality improvement and pedagogical excellence across the Division making a positive contribution to service excellence.
* Travel outside of the geographical Division when necessary to support a collaborative approach to consistency and organisational learning.
* Support the successful implementation of Safety, Compliance, and Risk strategy and development of action plans across nursery settings, to ensure alignment with company strategic objectives.
* Implement and provide evidence to inform the Safety, Compliance, and Risk monitoring process to drive improvement and secure excellence in all aspects of EC pedagogy, training, contributing to the highest operational standards, first class nursery management, sustained regulatory compliance and innovative early childhood practice.
* Act as the ‘advocate for children’ within the Area, to ensure a ‘Children First’ approach to children’s physical and emotional wellbeing, including Safeguarding, Child Protection, and regulatory compliance.
* Provide high quality advice, coaching and mentoring to nursery managers and their teams around EC pedagogy, safety and regulatory compliance, to drive a culture of ongoing improvement and secure high-quality pedagogy. Continuously monitor progression and closure of open action items via the monitoring system.
* Develop and maintain strong and positive relationships with key stakeholders working in collaboration and maintaining a thorough knowledge of the business and external regulatory environment.
* Contribute to the regular review of the Quality and Regulatory Standards Audit so that it is up to date in relation to Child Protection/childcare legislation/standards.
* Use evidence to challenge managers, setting clear expectations of what good and outstanding practice looks like, and support them in improving their services, ensuring that the wellbeing of children and young people is embedded in pedagogy.
* Take swift action with underperforming settings, recognising, and evidencing poor or unsafe practices, including supporting management of safeguarding issues, and reporting these to the Operations Director and the Head of Q&RS.
* Undertake compliance monitoring visits where there is cause for concern.
* Undertake evidence retrieval work, sharing best practice and lessons learned to inform organisational learning and best practice.
* Support and contribute to the development of policy, frameworks, guidance, and learning resources.
* Be responsible for allocated audits and mock inspections, taking ownership for scheduling visits according to priority and informed by data analysis.
Responsible For:
* Assessing the level to which company policies, procedures and requirements are applied across all nurseries and identifying risks of non-compliance.
* Identifying and developing strategies to effectively mitigate risks and ensure that nurseries are compliant with current legislation as set out by the relevant regulatory bodies in UK.
* Conducting internal audits and mock inspections, working in collaboration with appropriate stakeholders, informing processes for organisational learning, and recommending improvement solutions which will result in measurable improvement.
* Advising, supporting, and coaching nursery managers and other colleagues in regulatory requirements.
* Supporting the Head of Q&RS in general Q&RS work as directed, including but not limited to carrying out visits, inspection, and training etc.
Essential Experience:
* Highly experienced Early Childhood Specialist with proven, successful management experience within medium/large education providers and/or Local Authorities, with experience of delivering high quality early childhood provision, and securing ‘good or better’ regulatory inspection outcomes across multi-site businesses.
* Demonstrable track record of driving quality improvement through the implementation of successful monitoring and impact measurements, in close partnership with operations and nursery management teams.
* Confident decision-maker, with the proven ability to support change and inspire innovation; a secure understanding of the complex relationship between business/commerce and pedagogical excellence within a large nursery organisation, with the ability to follow guidelines and work with others to achieve success.
* Experience of developing high performing nursery practitioners and leading nursery teams, with a successful track record of supporting effective regulatory compliance, quality improvement, innovation, and pedagogical excellence.
* Significant experience (more than 10 years) within the Early Childhood arena, with secure understanding of relevant legislative frameworks, safeguarding and child-protection requirements, pedagogical and operational challenges, and national and international perspectives on ‘best practice’.
* Ability to write clear, concise reports on pedagogy, to highlight salient points and drive improvement. Able to use IT to support all aspects of reporting and input of relevant quality monitoring data to drive quality and measure the impact of EC initiatives in nurseries.
* Work independently and able to prioritise effectively to support ongoing improvement across the UK.
Desired Experience:
* Previous experience of working in Local Authority in an Early Childhood context or Ofsted, with experience of quality improvement, supporting early childhood pedagogy in settings and delivery of relevant training and development activities across a wide geographical area.
* Previous experience of managing a nursery, with evidence of improving the quality and inspection outcomes over time, coaching and mentoring others to drive pedagogical excellence and compliance.
* Experience of engagement with practitioner networks, to promote a shared community of practice that extends over a geographical Division and contributes effectively to quality improvement in early childhood settings across the UK.
* Significant experience of teaching and designing training in Early Childhood related subjects for practitioners at all levels.
* Expert knowledge and understanding of all regulatory requirements and inspection processes in the UK.
Qualifications
* Broad academic education (Essential)
* Minimum level 3 in Early Years Education (Essential)
* Relevant first degree in Early Childhood related subject (Desirable)
* Post Graduate professional qualification – Qualified Teacher Status; Early Years Teacher Status or Early Years Professional Status (Desirable)
* Relevant Regulatory Inspector training qualification/certificate (Desirable)
* Evidence of continuous professional development and awareness of current pedagogical national initiatives.
* Leadership and Management accredited qualification (Desirable)
* Adult/Further/Higher Education teaching certificate and/or experience – Early Childhood Studies or relevant subject.
* Full, clean driving licence.
Bright Horizons are committed to creating inclusive environments where everyone has a sense of belonging and has the opportunity to contribute and thrive in meaningful and impactful ways. We are an inclusive employer and welcome people from all backgrounds to apply. We will consider reasonable adjustments required by applicants. If you share our passion, values, and have most of the skills listed, we encourage you to apply – as you may be just what we are looking for! Please note, due to our sector all roles are subject to an Enhanced DBS. Some of our roles require specific qualifications by law, this will be highlighted as essential within the advert.
We look forward to receiving your application!
If you experience any problems, please email europe.recruitment@brighthorizons.com and we will be happy to help.
About Us
At Bright Horizons, our culture is built on our commitment to Keeping Everyone Safe and providing world-class care and education, delivered by a world-class workforce. We believe our people’s potential is endless and with this in mind, we aspire to create an environment where our colleagues can thrive and accomplish the things they thought impossible.
Bright Horizons has been recognised as a Great Place to Work by our employees and the Great Place to Work Institute for the last 13 years. We care passionately about what we do, and our HEART values and principles help us support one another in the work that we do each day. These are quite literally at the HEART of our organisation’s ethos and culture as it helps us to provide a working environment that supports professionalism, growth and diversity.
We are passionate about our people’s ongoing learning and development. Our learning and leading with HEART framework supports each Bright Horizons colleague on the first steps of their leadership journey, whether that includes our 'World-Class Welcome' induction or our extensive ongoing training programme. Either way we want you to feel valued and invested in!
Celebrating in the accomplishments of our people is an essential part of our culture. We believe in the power of “thank you” and throughout the year, in ways big and small, formal and informal, we show our appreciation for employees at all levels. We have many ways to acknowledge and celebrate our people, including our very popular “employee appreciation month”. This is a chance for everyone to share their gratitude to one another, across the whole company. Whether it is a “thank you” placed on our website, a chocolate pizza, team lunch or an ice cream van visit, it is our way of showing each other we care and appreciate everything we do. Each year, we have our annual 'Awards of Excellence' events; whether you are an award winner or cheering on a fellow team member, these formal award occasions are opportunities to come together and celebrate one another.
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