London Early Years Foundation |

We’re changing the world one child at a time. We've been around for a long time, 121 years to be precise, but we're always evolving, and you could grow with us.

As a charitable social enterprise, we're leading change in Early Years, ensuring equal education and care for all children to give them the best start in life. Through our social enterprise model, LEYF runs nurseries in disadvantaged areas where there wouldn’t otherwise be a high-quality nursery accessible (77% of our nurseries are in the ‘most deprived’ and ‘deprived’ areas of London, versus an average of 50% throughout London). Those nurseries provide the same high-quality care and education to the children while also going above and beyond to support their families and local communities.

Experiences in early childhood shape children’s lives throughout the rest of their education into adulthood. We enable each child to be the best they can be, by working with over 4,000 children and families each year regardless of their background, to give children the best possible start in life.

We consistently achieve higher Ofsted ratings, with over 46% of our nurseries rated ‘Outstanding’ by Ofsted, versus 15% on average in London. The rest of our nurseries are rated ‘Good’. We can achieve these results because of our approach to enabling children’s learning and development, which is through our LEYF Pedagogy.

You really can make the BIGGEST impact with us!

Our four core values: brave, inspiring, nurturing and fun, are at the heart of everything we do. We can’t wait to see how you could grow and evolve with these values guiding your actions.

The best Early Years education is delivered by amazing teachers, and so we provide top training and development through our London Institute of Early Years to deepen your knowledge and practice.

We also provide a range of benefits to support you while employed with us:

• 100% of our nurseries are Ofsted-rated Outstanding or Good
• Generous pension to prepare for your future - we contribute 7% while you contribute 1%. You may choose to increae your own contributions.
• 70% discount on childcare fees for your children or grandchildren at a LEYF nursery
• Up to 35 days annual leave per year, including 8 bank holidays, 3 days off between Christmas and New Year, and your birthday off
• Enhanced parental leave
• Wide range of Wellbeing support including financial wellbeing, emotional wellbeing, counselling support and more
• Shopping discounts through our Benefits hub
• Team celebrations in your nursery
• Annual company conference – a fun and informative whole company event

We champion diversity across our team at LEYF. We firmly believe that children need role models from all walks of life, which influences their decisions and choices in life.

We are proud that 7.6% of our Teachers are men, compared to the national average of 3%, and 58% of our staff who reported their ethnicity are of an ethnic minority.

The best education is delivered by an amazing team of Teachers and Managers, and so we provide top training and development run by our award-winning LEYF Training Academy. Everyone has an opportunity to develop at LEYF. We have many programmes to help you plan your development. We will work with you to map out a progression pathway.

You can also access a wide range of accredited courses through our London Institute of Early Years to deepen your knowledge and practice, including our Level 3 Apprenticeship, Early Years Foundation Degree, BA Hons in Early Childhood Studies, Early Years Sustainability Degree and more.

Sustainability at LEYF means examining how we provide children from disadvantaged families access to quality, affordable Early Years education and care as well as addressing how we help build a community of sustainability-informed children, staff and parents.

In 2022, we were proud winners of the Nursery World Eco-Friendly Early Years Award for championing an eco-friendly approach in everything we do, from management and resourcing, to recycling and educating young children about sustainable development.

We even provide a Sustainability in the Early Years qualification through our London Institute of Early Years. This course was developed by our specialists in Early Years and sustainability, June O’Sullivan, CEO of the London Early Years Foundation (LEYF), and Nick Corlett, LEYF’s Sustainability Lead. The aim of this course is to explore how to introduce the principles of sustainability through pedagogy, process and practice, enabling staff both within LEYF and across the sector to become Green Champions in Early Years settings.