Spotlight on ... Jo Halling

Each nursery held its own party with a different theme. One nursery chose a carnival theme, for example, and it made a hook-a-duck game and a coconut shy.

How have you seen the chain develop since you have worked there?

I've worked at Hopscotch for 22 years. In 1988, our owner Barbara Ford had one nursery. Now we have five, and we've added things like an after-school club. But we've retained a very local, community ethos. We're all within a 20-mile radius of each other. We're always looking to expand and to improve.

Why do you enjoy working at Hopscotch?

We've got a very strong team ethos. I'm obviously much more involved in the business side, but we've got five exceptionally good nursery managers. As part of the 25th birthday celebrations we had a staff party, which was a great excuse to say thank you to all the staff. We had all our nurseries inspected this year and we got two outstanding and three good ratings, so it was great to celebrate that too.