• 2% professional development budget
• Hybrid work environment + flexible hours
• 50% childcare discount

Join the team at ECMS and play your part in fostering lifelong learning for children, families, ourselves and our partners.  

After strengthening the foundations of the organisation over the last two years, ECMS is now in an exciting position to look to the future and shape the way ahead. This comes from a combination of working to a multi-year strategic plan, getting clear on what we stand for and putting our values to work.

We are striving to show consistently good learning outcomes and be a place where the best early years people choose to work. We pay particular attention in our practice to continuous improvement, place based pedagogy and developmental approaches birth to 5.

About the role

We know that there is a direct relationship between strong leadership and high-quality education and care that leads to positive outcomes for children. At ECMS, we back our service leaders and invest heavily in their capability and experience. We are therefore looking for a senior ECE leader to join our Area Manager team to guide and develop our service leaders.

As an Area Manager you’ll oversee a portfolio of services, including both long day care and sessional kindergartens across the Greater Metropolitan Melbourne area (exact locations and mix of services to be determined). By leaning into a distributed leadership model and engaging in partnerships at the local level and coordinating the development of context specific service support plans, you will empower the service leader to set their team up for success and meet high expectations for learning and continuous quality improvement.

You’ll be part of a broader multi-disciplinary team that span deep technical knowledge across coaching, pedagogy, people management, facilities, child safety, communications, and finance. You’ll be resourceful in leveraging the expertise available to apply a ‘bigger picture’ perspective and drive sustainable operations.

Day to day, you will…

• Drive team culture and performance through positive, values-based leadership.
• Develop effective relationships with your services alongside our LGA and community partners.
• Enable practice improvement and high pedagogical standards through clarity of goals, providing coaching moments and aligning services to our overarching pedagogical principles.
• Use evidence and data to ensure operational, cultural and financial sustainability across your portfolio; and
• Build a collective commitment to networking, reflection and practitioner-led research across your portfolio of service leaders to support professional growth and lifelong learning.

About You

• You are an experienced early childhood education and care professional who has proven experience in building deep relationships and leading people to drive performance and build capability.
• Your extensive knowledge of Early Childhood Education research and the National Quality Framework (NQF), coupled with your ability to transfer knowledge into practical application, will ensure teams deliver programs which deliver consistently good outcomes for children.
• Your positive, can-do energy and a passionate commitment to child centred approaches fuels your professional and personal drive. You are a life-long learner in all aspects of your life.
• You are a passionate champion for diversity and build on the strengths of communities. You have a nuanced understanding and practical application of place-based approaches.
• You are a systems thinker who can identify smarter ways of working and you are comfortable to challenge the status quo – and you do so with curiosity and critical thinking.
• You can chart your own path, while playing a central team role. You have high internal accountability and can manage competing priorities in empathetic and proactive way.

What’s in it for you?

• Competitive remuneration package.
• Autonomy to decide where and how you work to achieve agreed outcomes and manage your personal commitments.
• 50% childcare discount. 
• 2% professional development allowance – your development is catered just for you. 
• Opportunity to accelerate your career due to high level of responsibility and opportunities supplemented by exposure to high caliber colleagues and a wide variety of learning opportunities.
• Access to a range of retail and recreational activities at significantly reduced rates via our fully sponsored Employee Benefits Program such as Coles, Woolworths and Booking.com .

‘ECMS promotes the safety, wellbeing and inclusion of all children. Successful applicants are required to adhere to our child safe practices, policies can be located here.  

Applications from Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples and people from diverse communities and backgrounds are encouraged. 

For more information or to request a Job Description, please contact Stephanie at scharalambous@ecms.org.au. Applications will be reviewed on a rolling basis.