About us
Connecting hearts with helping hands
Tiny Tots Recruitment places permanent staff into early years settings across the UK, from village pre-schools to city nursery groups. Early years is all we do, and permanent is all we place.
What we do
We find permanent people for nurseries, pre-schools and nursery groups. That is the whole business. We do not run a temp desk, we do not cover shifts, and we do not recruit outside early years.
Why permanent only
Children in early years settings do better with consistency, and so do the teams around them. An agency with a temp desk has a commercial reason to prefer a rota gap to a filled post. We removed that conflict by not having the desk.
Where we work
The whole of the UK. A village pre-school and a forty-place city nursery need different people, so we ask the same questions about both before we suggest anybody: the room, the team they are joining, and why the post is open. Bear in mind that Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland run early years frameworks separate from England's, and the qualification rules differ with them.
The market we work in
Roughly seven in ten providers cannot staff to full capacity, and more than nine in ten have Level 3 vacancies open. The average setting is short four full-time staff and could take thirteen more children if it were not. That is the market both our candidates and our clients are operating in, and pretending otherwise helps nobody.
Values
What we hold ourselves to
We tell you when we cannot fill it
On the first call, not after three weeks of silence. That includes saying when the salary sits below the local band, when the hours will not attract a Level 3, and when the reason a post keeps reopening is not a recruitment problem. It costs us briefs. We would rather have your trust than your retainer.
Where our job ends and yours begins
We are a search and matching agency, not a screening service. We do not carry out DBS checks, take up references or verify qualifications, and we will not imply otherwise to win a brief. Safer recruitment is your duty and it stays with you, so everyone we introduce still goes through your own checks. Knowing exactly where that line sits is part of how children stay safe.
The room test comes first
Everybody we place ends up in a room with children in it, and that is the first question we ask about anyone: would we be glad to see them in there on Monday morning? It is why we turn candidates down, including ones we could place somewhere else, and why you are more likely to get three names from us than eight. Three you can genuinely choose between beats eight you have to sift.
Permanent only, and the reason why
An agency with a temp desk earns money for as long as your vacancy stays open, so its interest and yours point in opposite directions. We removed that conflict by not having the desk. The same goes on the other side: nobody here gets nudged towards shifts when what they wanted was a career.
Two ways to pay, both agreed in writing
A flat fee invoiced upfront, at a lower rate because you are sharing the risk with us. Or contingent, where nothing is payable until your chosen candidate signs. Either way the terms are agreed in writing before any work starts, so nothing about the cost arrives as a surprise.
Early years, and nothing else
Early years is the only sector we work in, so we know what an approved Level 3 actually is, what a good two-year-old progress check looks like, and why the baby room is the hardest room in the building to fill. We also know that a village pre-school and a forty-place city nursery need quite different people. Most agencies placing nursery staff also place warehouse and office staff, and it shows the first time somebody sends you a CV that does not count in ratio. We always ask what went wrong last time, because it is usually the most useful thing anybody tells us.
Company
The legal bit
Tiny Tots Recruitment Ltd is registered in England and Wales, company number 16110085. Registered office: 24 Christie Way, Stratford-upon-Avon, CV37 7PS.