Nursery Chains: The big league

There has been a frenzy of acquisitive activity among the largest nursery chains this year. The 25 largest nursery groups in the UK and Ireland now own or manage more than 1,000 settings.

Considered together, the largest nursery groups have expanded in size, both in terms of the places they provide and nurseries operated.

The 25 chains in this year's league table offer a combined total of 76,643 places across 1,022 settings, up from 71,382 places across 952 nurseries in Nursery Chains' 2011 edition.

Busy Bees has held the top spot as the country's largest nursery group for many years now, but 2012 saw the chain steam ahead of its closest rivals. It now offers nearly twice as many childcare places as Bright Horizons, the second biggest chain in the league table.

For Busy Bees, the acquisition of Just Learning in August, previously the third largest nursery group in the country, added 71 more nurseries and just under 7,000 places in one swoop.

Combined with the buyout of Sussex-based group Early Years Childcare's nine settings in January, these deals mean that Busy Bees is now almost double the size it was this time last year and offers more than 19,500 nursery places across 214 nurseries.

Busy Bees is not just the biggest of all the groups in terms of settings, but also provides more than 20 per cent of the places shared among the 25 largest nursery chains.

Bright Horizons, the second largest nursery group, has also grown, acquiring the Casterbridge group, previously the eighth largest nursery chain. The deal added a further 27 nurseries, building on a spread of settings in London and the south-east.

Also in the top half of the table, The Co-operative Childcare has snapped up groups of varying sizes, increasing the number of places it offers by more than a third, and jumping from 13th to seventh position. It now runs 47 nurseries and two after-school clubs.

The Co-operative's run of deals began in March with the acquisition of Places for Children, an eight-strong group, and two Banana Moon nurseries in Leamington Spa.

This was followed by the Petit Enfant group of four nurseries, acquired in May. In August, the chain bought three nurseries based at the City of Wolverhampton College and acquired a nursery school in Walsall.

Next month, the group will take over the running of the University of Sussex nursery and pre-school. As part of the deal, the Co-operative has been granted a 25-year lease to run the new 100-place nursery, which will open in September 2013, and will be open to the community as well as university staff and students.

It is also set to open its first setting in Worcestershire next month in a community centre in Kidderminster, previously owned by Worcestershire County Council.

Elsewhere in the table, children's charity 4Children has leapt up the rankings as a childcare provider, from 20th place to 12th position. The organisation now runs 32 nurseries, as well as 62 children's centres and 19 out-of-school clubs.

The bottom half of this year's league table boasts four new entries. Opening its first nursery ten years ago, Bristol-based Mama Bear's Day Nursery has grown from 12 to 18 settings over the past 12 months.

Co-founder and director Tony Driffield told Nursery World that the group's philosophy was to run nurseries 'for-profit but with a social ethos', operating 'in pockets of deprivation but still attracting fee-paying clients from a wider area'.

The original nurseries benefited from Neighbourhood Nurseries funding and nearly all of the group's settings are already delivering places for disadvantaged two-year-olds.

This year, the chain has taken on the running of six more nurseries, with one more deal planned for this autumn and two more in the pipeline for 2013. Mr Driffield said that the focus was on developing a strong presence in areas with existing nurseries so that back-office costs could be shared and staff could be moved around settings as needed.

With this in mind, Mama Bear's - which already has nine nurseries in Bristol - has expanded across the West Country this year, with two more settings in Paignton, and nurseries in Plymouth and Torquay. The group has acquired a local authority nursery in Yeovil and the nursery at Yeovil District Hospital.

To ensure sustainability, both nurseries will be combined at a new setting developed at a site on a long lease from Somerset District Council and will offer 60 to 80 places to hospital and council employees, as well as the wider community. The group plans to expand at around two nurseries a year.

Elsewhere in the league table, All About Children is in 23rd place after doubling the number of settings it owns since last year. Set up in 2010 by Russell Ford, the chain now has eight nurseries offering more than 800 nursery places, with plans to open another setting and increase capacity at existing sites.

The other two new groups in Nursery Chains' top 25 are Safehands Green Start and Active Learning, in 18th and 25th places respectively.

Consolidation means that some 'old' names, like Just Learning and Casterbridge, are now amalgamated and listed under their new owners in the directory.

But every year brings new nursery groups to our attention and this year is no exception. New entries include Mulberry Bush Nursery Group, due to open a fifth nursery next year, and Twinkles Nurseries in Wetherby, also expanding in 2013.

QUALITY COMPARISON

For the second year running, we have also compared the Ofsted reports of the 20 largest chains providing childcare in England to see how the groups measure up on the quality of childcare they offer (see the full table in the pdf attached).

We include Caring Daycare and Tops Day Nurseries, who are in 21st and 22nd position respectively, in place of the Irish groups Cocoon Nurseries and Giraffe.

Looking at this year's table of Ofsted reports, it is heartening to see that many of the nursery groups that featured last year have improved their scores, by increasing the number of outstanding and good grades at settings they own or manage.

Kids 1st retains its first place as the nursery group with the highest proportion of outstanding grades. All of the group's nurseries are either rated outstanding or good. Caring Daycare - new to the table - is in second place, with its grades split equally between outstanding and good across 12 settings.

Childbase has dropped from second to third place. The 41-strong group is also nearly equally split between good and outstanding settings. In fourth and fifth position respectively are Kiddi Caru (formerly the Childcare Corporation), and Happy Days.

Sixth place is shared between 4Children and Bright Horizons. It is notable that as the second largest group Bright Horizons manages to maintain the quality of its provision despite its size, with 36 outstanding settings and 74 rated good.

Finally, while Safehands Green Start's score looks very low in comparison to the others, it is worth noting that this includes six settings from the acquisition of a group of nurseries, which was due to go through as Nursery Chains went to press. The sale includes four nurseries rated satisfactory and one inadequate setting. Most of Safehands' established nurseries have been judged good by Ofsted.

TOP 20 LARGEST NURSERY CHAINS OFSTED REPORTS

*Figures in brackets denote 2011 scores.

• (For the full table and group breakdown by Ofsted report see 'The big league'.)