Provision
Nursery chain doubles its numbers
A nursery owner is doubling the number of settings she runs in order to meet increased demand.
Toni Krajnik outside her Wise Owl nursery in Scunthorpe
Toni Krajnik, owner of Wise Owl Day Nursery in Scunthorpe, North Lincolnshire and Durrington, Wiltshire, plans to open new nurseries in Messingham, North Lincolnshire and Bulford, Wiltshire, bringing her total number of settings to four.
The nursery in Bulford is expected to open at the beginning of next year and to cater for 70 children aged nought to five, while the one in Messingham is to open in the middle of 2011 and provide 36 places.
Ms Krajnik is now in the process of recruiting more than 30 staff for the new nurseries.
The two existing settings, which are running at full capacity, are also being expanded with a £3,000 loan from Business Link. Ms Krajnik plans to have a head office in North Lincolnshire to oversee the running of the four nurseries.
Ms Krajnik said, 'Setting up a head office is priority, as I am currently running the nurseries from my living room. Since opening the first nursery I have done everything on my own from scratch, so it will be nice to have some help.'
Ms Krajnik, a former secondary school teacher, opened her first nursery in Scunthorpe in 2005, when her colleagues were complaining that they could not find good quality childcare locally.
Three years later she moved to Wiltshire where her husband, who works in the army, was posted, and she opened her second nursery in the grounds of an infant school after struggling to find daycare in the area.
Ms Krajnik said she hopes her new nurseries will ease the continuing shortage of childcare provision in both areas.
Both settings will offer live web streaming for parents, as in the existing nurseries, and offer sensory rooms and an after-school club.
Ms Krajnik said that she eventually hopes to increase the number of nurseries in the chain to ten.
