What does it actually take to lead a successful nursery?

It is a bigger question than it might first appear.

For many people, progression into nursery leadership follows a familiar route. A strong practitioner becomes a room leader. A room leader develops experience and moves into a deputy or management position. Eventually, they take on responsibility for leading a setting, a team, or a wider area of the business.

On paper, it makes perfect sense.

In reality, the transition can be much more complex.

Because being excellent at Early Years practice and being confident enough to lead an Early Years business are not necessarily the same thing.

Today’s nursery leaders are expected to manage people, maintain quality, deal with difficult conversations, make decisions under pressure, understand staffing, monitor occupancy, contribute to budgets, support recruitment and retention, communicate with parents and, increasingly, understand the commercial realities behind running a sustainable setting.

That is a significant leap. And it was a gap we kept hearing about.

So, before we built the Lead & Inspire Early Years Leadership Accelerator Programme, we started by doing something simple.

We listened.

We spoke to nursery owners, managers and leaders about what the job actually involves, where new leaders struggle and what they wished they had known before stepping into management.

What emerged was clear. The sector did not necessarily need more leadership theory.

It needed leadership development that better reflected the whole reality of the job.

That is why Lead & Inspire was created.

The challenge facing Early Years leadership is growing

There has arguably never been a more important time to invest in leadership within Early Years.

The sector continues to face significant recruitment and retention pressures. The latest National Foundation for Educational Research workforce report highlights continuing concerns around staffing supply, retention and career progression, with workforce numbers appearing to have plateaued after previous growth.

NFER previously reported a 16% staff turnover rate among group based providers in 2024, compared with 8% in school based providers. While turnover improved from 19% in 2023, retaining skilled people remains a major challenge for the sector.

At the same time, the Early Years sector is being asked to expand.

Government plans around childcare entitlement have increased demand for places and, consequently, the people needed to deliver them. NFER has highlighted concerns that workforce pressures could constrain the sector’s ability to meet demand, particularly where recruitment growth slows.

For nursery owners, this creates a significant leadership challenge. You cannot simply recruit your way out of every problem.

You need to retain good people. You need to develop people internally. You need managers who can take responsibility.

And you need a pipeline of future leaders who understand more than just what happens inside their room.

This is where leadership development becomes a strategic issue rather than simply a training decision.

The move from practitioner to leader is bigger than most people expect

One of the strongest messages we heard from nursery leaders was that the transition into management often changes the nature of someone’s job almost overnight.

As a practitioner, your focus is primarily on children, learning, development and delivering high quality practice.

As a leader, the focus expands. Suddenly, you are responsible for people. You may be managing absence, handling conflict, supporting underperforming staff and having conversations that nobody particularly enjoys.

• You are making decisions about deployment and staffing.
• You are balancing quality against capacity.
• You may be involved in recruitment.
• You may be expected to understand occupancy.
• You may have a role in budgets and financial performance.
• You may be contributing to marketing activity or helping build relationships with prospective parents.

And while all of this is happening, the nursery day continues around you.

There is rarely a moment when you can simply step away and say:

“I’ll come back to leadership later.”

That is the reality of the role.

And it raises an important question.

Are we developing nursery leaders for the role we imagine they have, or the role they actually do?

Why traditional leadership development still matters

It is important to be clear.

This is not an argument against qualifications.

Qualifications play an important role in professional development and progression.

The Level 5 Early Years Lead Practitioner Apprenticeship, for example, provides an established higher level progression route within the sector. It is an approved Level 5 apprenticeship with a typical duration of 24 months, alongside an end point assessment period.

That depth has value. Structured learning gives practitioners the opportunity to build knowledge, develop professional understanding and demonstrate competence against an occupational standard.

For many people, Level 5 will remain an important part of their career journey.

But through our conversations with employers and managers, we repeatedly heard another challenge.

Leadership responsibilities often arrive faster than leadership confidence.

Someone may be progressing through a longer qualification while already managing people.

• They may already be responsible for a room, a team or an entire setting.
• They may already be dealing with staff performance.
• They may already be making operational decisions.
• They may already be experiencing the pressure of recruitment challenges and staffing shortages.
• The role cannot wait 18 or 24 months for confidence to arrive.
• That does not mean a Level 5 qualification lacks value.

It means employers increasingly need to think about what else can support leadership development alongside, before or beyond a traditional qualification route.

Knowledge and confidence are not the same thing

You can understand how to have a difficult conversation.

That does not necessarily mean you feel confident having one.

You can study leadership theory.

That does not necessarily mean you know what to do when two members of your team are in conflict at 8am on a Monday morning.

You can learn about business planning.

That does not automatically prepare you to understand why occupancy has dropped or what action you should take.

You can understand the importance of staff retention.

That does not necessarily mean you know how to create an environment where people want to stay.

This is the gap between knowing and doing.

And it is one of the reasons we believe practical application needs to sit at the centre of modern leadership development.

Great leaders are not created by information alone.

They develop through a combination of knowledge, experience, reflection, challenge and support.

We didn’t start with a course. We started with the people doing the job.

Lead & Inspire was not created in isolation.

It was developed in response to conversations with the people who understand the reality of nursery leadership.

• Nursery owners.
• Nursery managers.
• Experienced Early Years leaders.

We wanted to understand where confidence was missing.

We wanted to know what challenges appeared once someone stepped into management.

And, importantly, we wanted to explore what traditional development routes did not always address quickly enough.

The answers helped shape the programme.

People told us they needed support with leadership.

But they also told us that leadership was only part of the picture.

They needed to understand the wider business of running a nursery.

That became one of the defining principles behind Lead & Inspire.

Leading a nursery is about more than leading practice

A nursery manager needs to understand high quality practice.

Of course they do.

But the role does not stop there.

A successful nursery is also a people business.

It is an operational business.

It is a service business.

And, for many owners, it is a commercial business operating within increasingly challenging financial conditions.

That means future leaders need a broader perspective.

They need to understand how different parts of the organisation connect.

For example, recruitment and retention are not simply HR issues.

They affect staffing stability, team morale, quality and ultimately the experience families receive.

Occupancy is not simply a sales figure.

It affects financial sustainability, staffing decisions and future investment.

Marketing is not something that happens separately from the nursery.

It helps communicate what makes a setting different and supports sustainable growth.

Financial awareness is not reserved exclusively for owners.

Managers who understand the implications of their decisions can contribute more effectively to the wider success of the setting.

This is why Lead & Inspire goes beyond the traditional idea of simply teaching someone how to manage a team.

It is designed to help leaders understand the bigger picture.

From personnel to performance: developing confident people leaders

People leadership remains one of the biggest transitions for anyone moving into management.

Being liked by your colleagues is one thing.

Leading them is another.

Managers need to be able to communicate expectations clearly, give feedback constructively and handle difficult conversations when they arise.

They need to understand performance.

They need to know when to coach.

When to challenge.

When to support.

And when a problem needs to be addressed rather than avoided.

These skills have a direct impact on team culture.

And team culture has a direct impact on retention.

The latest workforce research continues to identify recruitment and retention as major challenges across Early Years, while career progression opportunities remain an important consideration for developing and retaining higher qualified staff.

For employers, this creates an important opportunity.

Developing leaders internally does not simply help fill management positions.

It can demonstrate progression opportunities to ambitious people already within your organisation.

And when managers are more confident, they are better placed to support the people around them.

Understanding the business changes the way leaders make decisions

This is where we believe the conversation around nursery leadership needs to go further.

A manager might make a decision that solves an immediate staffing problem.

But does that decision affect occupancy?

Does it create additional pressure elsewhere?

Does it have financial implications?

Does it support or undermine the wider business strategy?

Strong leadership requires people to see beyond the immediate issue.

That is why Lead & Inspire incorporates the wider operational and commercial realities of running a nursery.

The programme helps leaders think beyond their immediate responsibilities and understand areas such as:

• People and personnel
• Recruitment and retention
• Operational performance
• Financial awareness
• Marketing
• Occupancy
• Business sustainability
• Growth and wider strategic decision making

These aren’t separate subjects that sit outside leadership.

They are leadership.

Because the people responsible for making decisions across a nursery need to understand the consequences of those decisions.

Why speed matters in leadership development

One of the biggest differentiators between a leadership accelerator and a traditional qualification pathway is not about taking shortcuts.

It is about speed to confidence.

The current Level 5 Early Years Lead Practitioner Apprenticeship has a typical duration of 24 months, reflecting the depth and breadth of an apprenticeship standard.

That long term development has clear value. But employers also told us something important.

Their managers are leading now. The staffing challenge is happening now. The difficult conversation is happening now. The operational decision needs to be made now. The business challenge cannot always wait for a qualification to be completed.

Lead & Inspire was therefore designed as a 10 month Leadership Accelerator.

Not to replace longer term professional development.

Not to suggest that leadership can be mastered overnight.

But to help leaders build practical capability and confidence at a pace that better reflects the demands of the role they are already doing.

This distinction matters.

The objective is not:

“How quickly can we complete a course?”

The objective is:

“How quickly can we help someone become more effective in the role?”

That is a very different approach.

Practical learning needs to happen alongside real leadership

There is no substitute for experience.

But experience without reflection can simply become repetition.

Someone can spend years managing people without necessarily becoming a better manager.

Practical development works best when leaders can connect learning directly to situations they are experiencing.

That is why real world application sits at the centre of Lead & Inspire.

The programme is designed around the challenges that arise in genuine nursery environments.

Participants can take ideas, frameworks and insight and apply them to the situations they are dealing with.

Then reflect.

Discuss.

Learn.

And improve.

The learning does not sit separately from the job.

It becomes part of how they do the job.

This helps close the gap between theory and confidence. Because leadership is rarely tested in perfect circumstances. It is tested when the rota changes unexpectedly.

When someone resigns.

When occupancy falls.

When a difficult conversation cannot be avoided.

When the team needs direction.

When the owner is not available.

When a decision has to be made.

Those are the moments leadership development should prepare people for.

The value of learning from other leaders

Leadership can be isolating.

This is particularly true within smaller nursery groups or independent settings.

A manager may be the most senior person on site.

They may not have another leader to sense check decisions with.

They may have questions they don’t feel comfortable raising internally.

Or they may simply benefit from hearing how others approach similar challenges.

That is why Lead & Inspire includes access to an ongoing Early Years leadership network.

The opportunity to connect with others matters.

It creates space for shared learning.

For perspective.

For reflection.

And for the reassurance that many leadership challenges are not unique to one person or one setting.

Leadership development should not simply stop when the final training session ends.

Some of the most important learning happens afterwards.

Why external recognition matters

When employers invest in leadership development, they want confidence that the programme has substance behind it.

That is why we are proud that the Lead & Inspire Early Years Leadership Accelerator Programme is Highfield Accredited at Level 4.

Highfield’s course accreditation service provides an official mark of quality for programmes that have been assessed against the standards of one of the UK’s leading awarding organisations. As part of its accreditation process, Highfield reviews learning resources and assessments to ensure learning outcomes are delivered and tested against its quality requirements.

For employers, this offers an important combination.

Lead & Inspire remains a programme specifically designed around the needs of the Early Years sector.

It has not been created by applying a generic management course to a nursery environment.

But its quality and structure have also been independently recognised through Highfield accreditation.

That means employers can invest in something that is both:

Built for the sector.

And:

Recognised for quality.

A Level 4 programme built around a different question

Traditional qualifications often begin with an occupational standard.

Lead & Inspire began with a different question.

What would help someone become a more confident and capable nursery leader in the real world?

The answer was not one single thing.

It was people leadership. It was practical confidence. It was decision making. It was operational awareness. It was understanding the wider business. It was learning from other leaders. It was having ongoing support.

And it was the ability to apply learning rather than simply retain information.

That is what shaped the programme.

The future of Early Years leadership needs more than a linear pathway

The traditional progression model still has an important place.

A practitioner develops experience.

They gain qualifications.

They progress into management.

They continue their professional development.

That should not disappear.

But the sector is changing.

Nursery leaders are operating in increasingly complex environments.

The workforce is under pressure.

Recruitment is challenging.

Retention matters.

Occupancy matters.

Financial sustainability matters.

Parents have choices.

Teams expect progression.

And owners need managers who can take genuine responsibility.

The latest NFER research points to a particularly important issue for the future of the sector: higher qualification levels are associated with quality, while opportunities for progression among Early Years professionals remain a concern.

That creates an opportunity.

The sector does not need to choose between qualifications and practical development.

It needs stronger pathways that combine both.

A Level 5 apprenticeship can provide valuable longer term professional development.

A practical accelerator can help build confidence and capability sooner.

Together, they can serve different purposes.

The mistake is assuming every leadership challenge requires exactly the same solution.

What Lead & Inspire is designed to do differently

Lead & Inspire was created to accelerate confidence without pretending that leadership can be completed.

Over 10 months, the programme brings together the areas nursery leaders told us matter most.

It develops practical people leadership, helping participants become more confident communicating, managing performance and leading teams.

It explores the operational reality of running a setting, helping leaders understand how decisions connect across the nursery.

It goes beyond day to day practice and introduces the wider business considerations that influence sustainable success, including personnel, marketing, occupancy and financial awareness.

It encourages practical application rather than keeping learning inside a training environment.

And it creates connection through an ongoing network of Early Years leaders.

The result is a broader approach to leadership development.

One that recognises that a confident manager needs to understand more than how to manage today’s nursery day.

They need to understand where the business is going tomorrow.

This is not about replacing Level 5. It is about recognising what the sector needs now.

There is an important distinction here.

We are not suggesting that employers should abandon established qualification pathways.

Nor are we suggesting that a 10 month programme can replace every aspect of a Level 5 apprenticeship.

They serve different purposes.

The Level 5 Early Years Lead Practitioner Apprenticeship offers a substantial, longer term progression route, with a typical duration of 24 months.

Lead & Inspire takes a different approach.

It asks:

What practical leadership capability does someone need to become more effective now?

For some employers, that may be a standalone development route.

For others, it may complement a wider qualification strategy.

For an aspiring manager, it may accelerate confidence before they progress further.

For an existing manager, it may fill gaps that experience alone has not addressed.

And for an owner, it may provide a structured way to develop the next generation of leaders inside the business.

The value is not in choosing one approach over another.

The value is in recognising that leadership development should match the needs of the person, the role and the organisation.

Built by listening. Designed for the real job.

That is ultimately what sits behind Lead & Inspire.

We did not begin by asking:

“What leadership course could we deliver?”

We asked:

“What do nursery leaders actually need?”

The answer came from the people doing the job.

People who understand the pressure of managing teams.

The difficulty of balancing quality with operational realities.

The challenge of retaining good staff.

The importance of occupancy and financial sustainability.

The complexity of making decisions when there is no obvious answer.

And the fact that leadership does not happen inside a textbook.

It happens every day.

Inside real nurseries.

With real people.

Real pressures.

And real consequences.

That is the environment Lead & Inspire was built for.

The question employers should now be asking

The question is no longer simply:

“Do we need to train our managers?”

It is:

“Are we developing them for the full reality of the role?”

Are they confident leading people?

Can they handle difficult conversations?

Do they understand the operational pressures affecting the nursery?

Can they make decisions under pressure?

Do they understand the relationship between people, occupancy, finance and performance?

Can they contribute to the wider success of the business?

And when they encounter something they haven’t seen before, do they have the confidence, network and support to work through it?

Because developing a manager is about more than preparing them to manage a room.

It is about preparing them to help lead a business.

Discover a different approach to Early Years leadership development

The Lead & Inspire Early Years Leadership Accelerator Programme is a 10 month, Highfield Accredited Level 4 programme built around the real demands of nursery leadership.

Developed from conversations with nursery owners and managers, it combines practical leadership development with a broader understanding of the people, operations and business behind a successful nursery.

From leading teams and managing performance to understanding marketing, occupancy, financial awareness and operational decision making, Lead & Inspire is designed for leaders who want to go beyond theory and build confidence where it matters most: in the real world.

Built by listening. Designed for the real job. Recognised for quality.

Ready to explore Lead & Inspire?

Download the Lead & Inspire Prospectus to discover the full programme, how the 10 month journey works and how it could support your current and future nursery leaders.