Provision
Nursery Chains: Quality comes tops in new nursery rankings
Kids 1st Day Nurseries come top in the Nursery World quality table, published for the first time in this year's Nursery Chains supplement.
Kids 1st came top in Nursery World's quality table. Kids 1st were award winners of Nursery World's Nursery Chain of the Year in 2009.
Nursery World painstakingly analysed the Ofsted reports of the 20 biggest nursery groups in the country to find out how the big chains in England fare in terms of the quality of the early education and childcare they offer.
For each group we have calculated the percentage of nurseries that are outstanding, good, satisfactory or inadequate.
We also devised a points system and gave points to each setting on the basis of their Ofsted grades. The total number of points for each group was then divided by the number of Ofsted reports, to produce a final score.
On this basis, we were able to compile a top 20 table for quality, in addition to our annual league table of the largest nursery groups, which is based on the number of places they offer.
Our quality table puts Kids 1st in first place, followed by Childbase in second and the Childcare Corporation in third position.
In joint fourth place are Bright Horizons and London Early Years Foundation.
Set up in 2003, Kids 1st now has eight nurseries in the north-east of England. Five settings have been graded outstanding and the remaining three have been judged as good.
Managing director Mark McArdle said, 'We're over the moon. We're absolutely delighted. This recognises the hard work of everyone across the whole group. It's testament to the commitment and dedication and qualifications of the staff team, and the team spirit within the group. We have an EYP in every setting.
'Our staff have a genuine love of children and provide the highest standards of care at all times.'
- For the full details of our league tables, read 'High fliers'.
