Nursery Chains: Award Winners - In all areas

What led you to a career in early years?

I have always had a caring nature but had never thought of a career with children. I was given a place at university to study fashion design and loved being creative, but two weeks before my A-level results I suddenly decided that I didn’t want to do that and enrolled on a HND in early childhood studies. I have never looked back. I love seeing how the children flourish while in our care. It’s the best part of my job.

What does a typical day for a regional ops manager involve?

Every day is different. One day I could be visiting nurseries to see how the managers and their teams are getting on. The next day I may be writing new initiatives, recruiting new staff, agreeing budgets, or updating policies.

I am fortunate that I am able to bring ideas to the table and implement them. You have to think on your toes a lot. I have a great team of managers and I try to ensure every one of them enjoys their job as much as I do mine. We are always laughing and coming up with ideas to develop the nurseries.

You led on Toad Hall’s Soil Association accreditation...

I’m a farmer’s daughter and a big believer that children should know where their food comes from. This piece of work started when I implemented our Cook and Grow programme, which focuses on children’s wellbeing and linking the outdoors with learning. The Soil Association allows us to recognise the quality of our ingredients and shout about the great food we provide. It gives me great satisfaction to know that every child that comes to our nurseries is getting the best start and fuelling their bodies ready for a busy day of learning. We also work with the Children’s Food Trust to check our menus for nutritional balance. It’s an area I’m very passionate about.

What other projects are you involved in?

I have just launched our ‘5 steps to the stars’, which focuses on improving the ongoing marketing for the company. I’m a big believer that you should have fun at work, and when I put new initiatives into the nurseries I want to get the staff on board from the start. All the staff can get involved and make sure everyone knows about all the good work going on at their nursery.

Toad Hall is also just piloting electronic learning journals. We are aiming to roll this out during the first few months of 2016. I hope that by using iPads to capture the children’s development, the staff will have more time to play and extend children’s learning.

And there may be the possibility of opening new nurseries, which is always great to be involved with.

How did you feel on winning the Nursery World award?

To be honest I was completely shocked to have won, but obviously really delighted. We have worked extremely hard to develop innovative Toad Hall programmes and to make people aware of the good work we do here, and I am fortunate to work in such a dynamic, supportive team.