Nursery chain aiming to brighten up image

The group, owned by the private education provider Nord Anglia, doubled in size when Nord Anglia bought the Milton Keynes-based Bright Horizons group last July. All 20 nurseries are now being re-branded.

Jacqueline Moss, managing director of Princess Christian nurseries, said, 'We felt it important to keep the Princess Christian name since it has become synonymous with quality childcare and education for the past 100 years, though we also felt that our company logo did not reflect our image.

Nord Anglia has also developed a quality assurance scheme for the Princess Christian nurseries. It will be piloted in one nursery after Easter, and if successful will be put in place throughout the group and may also be marketed to other nursery settings.

The next Princess Christian nursery opens next month in Weston-super-Mare, and units in Cheam and Bedford are to open in August. The group also plans to open a leasehold site in central London later this year and has secured three sites for 2003.

Ms Moss said, 'With our management and development team now fully in place, we are in a very strong position to take the business forward to new heights.'

The Princess Christian College in Manchester, also owned by Nord Anglia, is moving away from training nannies as its main business and into work-based training for those working in early years care and education, and with elderly people.

The college currently has about 18 privately-funded students taking the CACHE Diploma in Childcare and Education, who are mostly aiming to become nannies, and 150 NVQ students funded by public sources such as the Learning and Skills Council.

The college's leadership and management were condemned as 'unsatisfactory'

in a report from the Adult Learning Inspectorate in July 2001, although its support for employers and trainees was praised and the report noted good rates of achievement among NVQ students. But the Inspectorate found there was insufficient use of management information, poor quality assurance and poor understanding of equal opportunities.

Mike Frain, Nord Anglia's business manager, said the outcome of the inspection had been affected by recent changes, as Princess Christian had taken over another small training provider about a year earlier. He added, 'We are looking at re-structuring the management of Princess Christian, and personnel changes are in the pipeline.'