The latest issue of our annual supplement looks at how nursery groups across the country have fared during 2020, as they stayed open during the pandemic to support their children and families.
Despite the unprecedented challenges, many of the groups listed in our directory - which provides details of nursery groups throughout the UK - were able to press on with their expansion plans during the pandemic, some growing considerably.
Congratulations to the North-West based nursery group Kids Planet for achieving the number one spot in our Ofsted quality table, for the largest proportion of outstanding grades among the 25 biggest groups.
Of all the nurseries that it operates that have been inspected, more than 90 per cent of them are graded outstanding, while all the others are graded good.
In second place is Children 1st with 78 per cent of its eligible nurseries graded outstanding, and in third place the Childbase Partnership, which has 68 per cent of its nurseries with outstanding grades.
Both groups have their remaining inspected nurseries graded good.
As always, Nursery World’s annual Nursery Chains supplement, which is free with the March issue, includes our Top 25 league table ranking the biggest 25 nursery groups in the UK by the number of registered nursery places they offer.
Kids Planet has also grown in size in the past year, to become the third largest nursery group in the country, after acquiring Kids Allowed in January 2020.
The group now operates 53 settings and offers just shy of 5,800 places.
However, Busy Bees remains by far the biggest nursery group in the UK with 359 nurseries, providing more than 32,200 childcare places.
Bright Horizons remains the second largest group with 304 nurseries offering just over 24,700 places.
See the full rundown of the top 25 in Nursery Chains Spring 2021, available free with the March issue of Nursery World and online.- Overview of nursery groups during the past year of pandemic and lockdown.
- Directory of UK nursery groups.
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