Interview - Ruth Pimentel

It’s almost a year since Action for Children took on 4Children’s nurseries. How have you integrated them into the charity? Will they be rebranded?

Bringing over the nurseries was an incredibly busy time for everyone involved. Action for Children mobilised all the organisation to ensure the transition was as smooth as it could be. Our portfolio holds 36 nurseries and out-of-school clubs; this is a significant number and it was no small challenge to get it right. Almost one year on, the nurseries have maintained their high standards in terms of quality and we will be launching a new brand to showcase how these nurseries are available for all children and families while also being a hub for support for those who need it most. This is a growing part of Action for Children’s strategy to be supporting the early learning and childcare needs of children and families in their own communities.

Will you be offering the 30 hours childcare when it starts next month? What do you see as the challenges/opportunities?

All our nurseries will be offering the 30 hours. At the moment we have a mixed picture in terms of take-up, but we do know from parents who took part in a trial that in some cases it has made returning to work financially viable, or it has helped to reduce the financial stress that families often found themselves under when paying for childcare. To aid the challenge of sustainability we are currently rolling out a new nursery management system to help us manage our occupancy and to be able to forecast what this will look like over the coming months.

There has been a lot of discussion recently about the fact that the gap between disadvantaged children and their peers is not closing fast enough. What are your nurseries doing to address this?

By continuing to offer high-quality learning opportunities for all children and having wonderful facilities to do this in. This is supported through close working with our colleagues in the Department for Education strategic partnership team to continue to learn from research and working with them to find ways of closing the gap.

Are you opening more nurseries soon? Any other developments?

We are currently reviewing new opportunities and want to capitalise on the benefits of running such a large group of nurseries and building on our strong relationships with the RAF and local authorities so that we can help provide childcare for those families who need it. We are excited to be starting the new term with an offer of 30 hours’ free childcare for those who need it, a new brand and some tools to support our managers in understanding their business. Busy times!