Nursery World Awards 14: Organisations - Nursery Chain of the Year

The social enterprise nursery group and charity runs 26 settings across seven boroughs.

LEYF, established 111 years ago in 1903, is now the third largest nursery group in the capital. Employing 400 staff, currently just under 3,000 children attend LEYF nurseries. It has ambitious plans to grow to 50 nurseries and reach 5,000 children by 2017. Occupancy has risen from an average of 60 per cent in the financial year 2010/11 to 70 per cent in 2013/14.

Earlier this year, the group opened two new nurseries in Soho and Peckham, and will be opening two more in 2014 - Brixton is due to open in September and Blackheath in October.

Nurseries are kept at 50 places or below, which LEYF says is because research shows that children, particularly those from disadvantaged backgrounds, tend to do better in smaller settings. Any income derived from the socially inclusive fees system is used to support parents on lower incomes, so that just under half of the parents attending a LEYF nursery are able to access a free or subsidised place.

The chain is involved in a variety of research projects, including a partnership with Middlesex University, the Twoness of Twos report and the London Men in Childcare project.

It also has partnerships with the wider community 'outside the nursery door', including EdUKAid pre-primary schools in Tanzania, a project putting children in touch with nursery children in Iceland, a new partnership with UNICEF and the Teens to Toddlers programme.

LEYF's approach to staff development was praised by the judges.

'Strong extra work and staff development - good use of being a chain,' one judge said.

The group says it takes 'people's learning to the next level' from apprenticeships to trainee and graduate programmes, internal promotion opportunities and by creating new posts, such as organisational SENCOs and nursery champions.

Staff turnover is low at 12 per cent and the average length of service is 4.7 years.

Summarising its strengths, LEYF says, 'A charity at heart, but with a business brain. We still see ourselves much less as a chain and more of a unique family of individual community nurseries - with strength and stability through shared values, common goals, mutual support and an overriding promise to be outstanding in every way for all concerned.'

Highly commended

Snapdragons Nurseries, Bath, Bristol and Wiltshire

The family-owned nursery group has been highly commended for the second year running. It now operates eight settings and has strong external links with the local community, which the judges praised.

Owner Rosemary Collard is a qualified early years teacher, sits on Wiltshire's childcare and workforce development group, and along with one of her managers is a governor at a local 'outstanding' primary school. This means that the nurseries now have access to 'immersive 4D technology', an innovation that the group says will put it at the forefront of early years ICT practice. Snapdragons is working with Gloucester University and Best Practice to provide training for Early Years Teachers.

Finalists

Chapter One Childcare, Edinburgh and North Yorkshire (five settings)

Fit 'N' Fun Kids, Cornwall (11 settings)

Tiny Toez, West Midlands (11 settings).

Criterion

Open to nursery groups with three or more settings.

Sponsored by Easy Solution 4 Nursery Education

[asset_library_tag 580,Download the PDF]