How did you establish Tigers Childcare?
I initially set up an after-school company in 2002. In Ireland at that time there wasn’t really anything catering for older children after school, so I saw a gap in the market. It wasn’t until 2015 that I really got involved in standalone early years centres in purpose-built nurseries. We are now the second-biggest provider in Ireland, with 14 settings.
What makes the group different?
There was a television exposé in Ireland in 2015 which went undercover in large chains and showed there was often extremely poor quality. The Government invested in training and funding to drive up the quality, and Ireland has really taken a leap in quality in the last four years. It is very much degree-led now, and we take that approach too. At Tigers we value what our staff do and pay them for non-contact time. We want to show you don’t have to be the most expensive in the market to provide good quality, but quality will make you popular and then you can be profitable in a business sense too.
How have you expanded internationally?
We originally looked at options in both Dubai and the UK as they have similar curriculums to us. We ended up tendering for a site at Elephant and Castle in London. There’s a lot of regeneration going on in that area and it is very mixed, with a lot of affluence alongside a lot of poverty. We have created a really exciting site with lovely rooms including crawl spaces and sleeping pods, which will open in September.
What is next for the group?
We will continue to look at expansion in Ireland, after buying the Irish settings belonging to Bright Horizons last August. But for now our focus will be on the UK; getting our Elephant and Castle setting bedded in and hopefully receiving an Outstanding from Ofsted. It will definitely be another 12 months before we look at more expansion, but ultimately our long-term plan will be to expand further over here.
