Meet Jessica – Centre Manager at Guardian Croydon Park

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Jessica, Centre Manager of our Croydon Park Centre, is an incredible leader and a valued member of our Guardian family.

She has been working at Croydon Park for one year now and has been greatly enjoying her role as Centre Manager. The Centre is in the area she grew up, and she is lucky to know the community and people well. Jess started working at Croydon Park as a maternity leave cover and lucky for us here at Guardian, decided to stay on permanently!

We spoke to Jessica to find out a bit more about why she loves being a Centre Manager at Guardian.

You have several years of history with Guardian – how did you get started?

“I worked with Guardian back in 2016 at Kellyville in NSW as the ECT Team Leader of the Preschool Room and 2IC. I moved back to Adelaide when I found out I was pregnant with my first child and was able to transfer over to Export Park where I worked up until I left to have my baby!”

In your own words, what makes Guardian a place people love to be?

“Guardian celebrates everyone, through the GStar Awards, the Thank You Thursdays and the special competitions. I think the way we acknowledge our amazing teams through the greater Guardian community, and also within our Centres, is what makes Guardian a place people love to be.

Through celebrating one another we become more like a family, and being day in and day out with your family makes coming to work enjoyable! It also creates passionate educators who are there wholeheartedly for the children and families.”

What career opportunities have you been given with Guardian?

“I have had opportunities to progress my career within Guardian from Lead Educator, to 2IC and now to Centre Manager. I have had opportunities for professional development through creative arts training, leadership trainings and workshops about building team culture.

What Guardian has provided the most is the opportunities to come together as a wider team to build connections with others and to grow together as a community.”

How do you feel Guardian supports you?

“Guardian supports me by trusting that our team has a plan and is working hard to achieve it. Together we are working to create a great team culture, to grow our community and to increase occupancy – and although there may be some small bumps along the way we are achieving our goals and Guardian always supports us to do so.”

What do you love the most about your leadership role?

“I enjoy working with a diverse team with differing cultures, knowledge and passions. I particularly enjoy working to support educators in creating their own visions for our Centre and watching their visions come to fruition.

Being able to see the Centre change to reflect the team working here, then seeing how excited and engaged the children and families are because of this, is what excites me most about coming to work!”

Can you share one of your most memorable moments in your Centre Manager role?

“I have had a few amazing moments at Croydon Park, first would be getting through the crazy rush of A&R just one month after starting as the Centre Manager and achieving a rating of Meeting.

The second would be winning the Summer Learning Program Competition and the Mindset Competition and being able to put on a special Awards Night for Croydon Park using the winning prizes.

Our educators got to pick how they wanted to spend the winnings and they suggested an Awards Night to celebrate them.”

What do you love most about your work in early childhood education and care?

“I love hearing great feedback, seeing the connections our team is making with the children and families, hearing about their excited ideas and seeing the love that goes into our Centre!”

If joining our Guardian family as an Educator, Teacher or as part of a Centre Leadership Team sounds good to you, we’d love to speak with you!

Get in touch with our Talent team: [email protected] or 1300 765 560

Current opportunities across the Guardian network can be found here.

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