10 Things You Must Do For Childcare Business Success

INTRO

10 things you must do for childcare business success

I opened my first nursery 10 years ago this year, and in honour of that I am doing a video telling you the ten things I wish I new and done when I started.

These are the ten things I think all of you should be doing in preparation for opening your nursery.

But before we get into that.

Welcome to the channel.

Welcome to the channel open a nursery with myself Curtly Ania where I support you to open run and grow your own childcare business.

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10 years though.

It’s crazy to think that ten years ago I was nervously planning and preparing to open my own nursery.

There I was just a young boy in my early 20s with no actual childcare experience preparing to start my own business.

It was scary.

When I told people my plans, many people looked at me funny as I was a young male going into a predominantly female dominated field.

But, I had one my research and new it was a good market to go into.

Plus, I was really interested in how children develop.

This time 10 years ago I was I would have had so many things going through my head, some negative thoughts that could have actually stopped me opening.

So many feelings would have been going through my head from fear to excitement.

All the worries I would have had and how naive I was to a lot of different things.

When I started there wasn’t really any advice or support online, so had to do a lot by myself. Which did lead to a few failures.

You’re probably in the same position now, feeling a range of different emotions.  Though thankfully now there is a lot of advice and guidance available online. 

Most of which I actually provide.

Well, ten years later I can look back with joy, so grateful that I didn’t give up and pursued through any hard-times.

But ten years goes so quick.

And it’s amazing to think how much has been achieved in that time.

I’ve subsequently opened 2 more nurseries for myself. Totalling 3.

And now I get the joy of helping others like yourself to open their nurseries too.

I’ve helped many people to open up.  Some of which now own multiple nurseries.

And I continue to help people like yourself to open their own nursery.

I’ve grown a lot, and I’ve helped lots of people gain the confidence to run their own business.

So, it has been a good ten years and I’ve learnt a lot through the process and I pray the next ten years are just as fruitful. And I hope you can be one of the people that I go on to support too.

But we’ll get to ways I can support you at the end of the video.

Here in this video I want to share with you some key things that I’ve learnt.  The ten most important lessons I think you should know if your just beginning on the journey based on my own experience and the experiences of others I have helped.

I’m often asked, when people find out that I’ve opened my own nursery is how I done it and how I manage it around other commitments like raising a family.

Over the years I’ve probably cared for almost a 1000 children and supported so many families and people are always shocked when I tell them  run multiple nurseries and also help support many others to do the same.

And shortly after people ask what are the secrets to success.

This is what inspired me to make this video.

In this video I will give ten different things you need to do to make your nursery successful.

Some of it will be more practical things you need to do with regards to a nursery and others will be more general advice.

These ten things will support you no matter what type of nursery you want to create.

Whether you want to open a preschool nursery, term time nursery or day nursery.  Whether you want to open in your home or in a dedicated building or whether you want to open a small 15 place nursery or large 100+ nursery.

This is all things that you should be able to take and put you in a better place to open up.

These are in no particular order and some may be more important or relevant to you.

So, make sure you check out all ten.

But let’s get straight into it.

The first thing you need to do is

1. Study the rules and regulations

You need to make sure that you study and are aware of all the regulations around opening and running your own nursery.  Unfortunately, there are a lot.

And this can get complicated if you haven’t worked in childcare before. 

Though fortunately I have done a course which introduces each rule and regulation with regards to opening as and when you need to know about it.  So, that you don’t become overwhelmed feeling you need to know everything all at once.

So, when you’re looking to hire staff it will go through the rules and regulations around hiring staff like ratio requirements or qualification requirements.  Or when your looking for your building it will show you all the rules around this.

This takes a lot of the stress away from this important point, as you don’t need to know everything all at once and it ensures that you don’t miss out on anything as well.

You don’t want to get want to be a day before your registration visit and then realise you need to have a manager or your missing a key document.

If you aren’t registered on the course, then you will need to make sure that study all the rules and regulations around opening a nursery.

It’s so important to study the rules and regulations around opening as you don’t want to get all the way to your registration day and then the regulatory body rejects your registration because you’ve missed something or you’re not aware a specific rule.

If this happened to you it could lead to you needing to reapply which would take another 6 months before you can open, wasting time and money.

Not knowing the rules and regulations could also lead to you not operating legally.  Which could lead to both financial and criminal ramifications.

So, it’s so important for you not to rush over this step.  Knowing the rules and regulations is one of the main ways that will help you to get childcare business success.

No matter where you are in the country, your nursery or other childcare business will have a regulatory body who provides the set of rules you need to follow.

In England this is Ofsted, in Scotland and Wales they refer to it as the Care Inspectorate and in Northern Island you will be regulated by the Health and Social Care Trusts.

Each provide their own different rules, so make sure you are aware of the body that you will be registered with and the rules that they provide.

As you don’t want to be in Scotland and following Ofsted rules, as they differ on some key points.

Thankfully, this is the only major difference between regulations within the UK.  So, unlike in some other countries we all pretty much follow the same rules, which does make things a little less confusing.

But these are the four bodies that will give you your certificate and allow you to operate and run your childcare business.

These rules are thorough and cover a lot of things.  So, be prepared for some good months of studying it to familiarise yourself with it.

Though, as I mentioned the course does make it easier for you to do this, as it teaches you the rules as and when you need it.

Otherwise, you will need to go through the whole document yourself. With the latest rules and regulations provided by Ofsted being 50 pages.

It is important that these rules are so important.  Most of the rules are in reaction to things that have happened, so it may seem like a lot of rules, it is all there to protect and develop the children we have in our care.

So, for example the importance of getting two substantive references for each member of staff was because an early years practitioner went around abusing children but it took longer for them to catch her because she left would leave her nursery before the nursery got a chance to properly investigate her.  If each nursery had got two recent references they would have known that she had safeguarding concerns at her previous nursery and taken appropriate action.

But new regulations are always added so it’s important to keep up to date with them.

So, even if you have worked in a nursery previously and are familiar with the rules, the rules and regulations may have changed in the latest updates.

So make sure to find out what the rules are and make sure you have them easily accessibly so that you can be constantly be looking at them and make sure you are aware of when anything gets update.

I will always post if there are any significant updates to the rules on this channel so make sure to subscribe if don’t want to miss out on any. 

But these rules will not only support you to open up correctly but to also ensure that you run your nursery or other childcare business correctly too.  Providing you stick to them.

As well as your countries childcare rules and regulations it is also important you are aware of the general rules you will need to follow with regards to running your business like the employment rules, planning laws you will need to follow when choosing your building whether it be in your home or not, fire safety rules and food safety regulations.

All of these are covered in the course as and when you need them, so I won’t go too much into it here, so that we can move onto the other 9 things you need to do for childcare business success.

But, if you aren’t planning to enrol on the course, which I will give more info about at the end of the video, then make sure you look up what the employment, planning, building and food regulations that you need to follow are.

The second thing you should be doing to ensure your childcare business is successful is to

2. Invest in our staff

Your staff are arguably the most important part of your business. I personally think they are the most important part.

The part that in order to be successful you need to invest in and get good staff.

The childcare field is difficult, most of your costs will be to staff costs.  This leads to wages in the childcare field being relatively low. 

Many childcare workers paid just above minimum wage.

Which can be demotivating.

So, if you can when starting up try to pay staff as well as you can afford.

When doing your budgeting factor in a wage that is competitive for your area.

Though, it is important to pay what you can afford as you don’t want to lose money running your business.

There is a lot of choice at the moment for childcare workers as with all fields.  There are a lot of jobs available and not enough staff to fill them.

And getting good staff in will take a lot of the stress away from running your nursery or other childcare business.

If you get good strong confident staff in from the beginning it will mean that they will already be experienced in the rules and regulations around working in the childcare field and be experienced in developing children, taking the pressure off of you a bit and ultimately leading to a better nursery.

Paying staff better is one way of attracting better staff.

But investing in your staff doesn’t just mean giving them more money, which I’m sure they would love and be great.

Fortunately, the salary is not the only way that you can attract good staff to your nursery over other nurseries.

The wage won’t be the only deciding factor for your potential employees.

They will also be looking at other things that bring job satisfaction.  Like your business ethos, the flexibility of the hours, the type of nursery or other childcare business you would like to set up, even whether there is parking could be a deciding factor.  But also you.  How you make them feel and whether they trust you.

So, consider all these factors when attracting and investing in your staff.

It is so important to attract and invest in the right staff, as no matter how well you do other parts of the nursery your staff will be the ones delivering your curriculum, using and implementing your resources, engaging with parents and other external bodies.

So, your childcare business will live and fail based on how good your staff are.

They can make or break your business.

Even after you hire your staff, it is still important to invest in them.

It’s important that you invest your time and energy into them too.

If you have a vision for your childcare business you need to be there to instil this into them.

Even just seeing you regularly allows you to preempt and prevent any issues happening in your childcare business.

It allows you to notice things early and gives staff the opportunity to bring any issues to you before they escalate or before resentment builds.

You also need to not be afraid to invest in your staff’s professional development.

They may not be with you forever, but if you can find out your staff’s long-term goals and try to help them achieve them you will get a much happier workforce and ultimately a more successful nursery.

It will also make them more likely to stick around longer as they know that they have your support.

Also, no matter how experienced your staff are, everyone can develop from additional training and reviews.  So, sending staff on regular training and doing regular observations and reviews with them will ensure that they feel valued and are constantly developing within your setting.

As if they feel they are developing and growing with you, it will not only improve the quality of your setting but they will also be less likely to look elsewhere for other opportunities.

Though, it is important to remember that everyone has a different learning style.

Not everyone can just read your policies and procedures or your staff handbook  and just get it.

And some might not be able to fully digest everything that is lectured to them during your staff meeting.

You need to be able to implement different ways of conveying your messages so that the majority of your staff can understand what they have been said.

There are many different types of learning styles but four main ones.  Visual, auditory, reading/ writing and kin-aesthetic learners.

Therefore, you should try to convey information in different ways, so that it can be understood by all your staff.

By getting to know your staff, you will learn the best way that they learn.  Making it easier for you to teach and develop them.  Helping you to save time.

Maybe you don’t need to create a 10-page document to introduce a new thing in your setting, maybe they’d benefit more from a demonstration.

You will know what’s best for them if you take the time to really know your staff.

This will also take the stress away from you, as I know how frustrating it can be trying to get staff to do something a certain way and them just not getting it. Sometimes, taking a step back and understanding that you may not be putting the message across in a way that they can understand can remove that frustration.

Again investing in this way, will lead to better and more motivated staff.

3. Create policies and procedures

Tip number 3 is to make sure you create a good set of policies and procedures at the start.

Now, there are some policies like your safeguarding policies and your SEN policies that are mandatory for you to create.

But, there are many others that you can create to set a precedent of how your want your childcare setting to run.

Creating these policies can take a long time, so I do have some available that you can download on the website www.openanursery.co.uk .

But you will want to create some key policies when you start so that everyone that joins your setting can all sing from the same hymn sheet and have a clear set of guidelines to follow.

It really helps to create a good clear ethos for your setting.

Try to stick to them too.  When you create them, there is a reason behind it.  It could be to improve the safety of your nursery or to help better develop children.

However, when you begin running your business it’s easy to forget the plans and provisions you put in place which can lead to you and your staff just free-styling a lot of the things that you do.

But never forget the policies you made, it’s there to guide you.

Try to always go back to them so that your setting is always running at a high standard.

Your policies and procedures aren’t a stagnant thing though.

You should take time to regularly review them to see whether they are still relevant and still working.  You should try to have this done at least once a year.

You may find that a policy you’ve introduced at the start of your business is no longer relevant or no longer working. Or maybe it never worked in the first place.

Don’t just leave it.

If you change how you run, make sure to update the policy around this.

Your policies and procedures are something that staff and even parents should read to know how you run, so it’s important that if you are no longer doing anything that is stated in your policies that you update this.

It is also important to keep your policies up to date as new changes come into place imposed by your regulatory body like Ofsted or the Care Inspectorate.

These bodies may check your policies and procedures during any visit to your setting, so it’s important that they are inline with the rules and regulations they set out.

4. Be patient

The fourth thing you need to do is to be patient.

Everyone wants things to happen right now!

They want their nursery open now, they want to make money now and they want to be successful now.

Unfortunately, none of this happens straight away.

It takes time.

It takes time for you to put plans in place and to create your nursery.

It takes time before you start making money, you will need to spend first, on your building, on your equipment on your marketing.

And success is not a tangible thing.

You will constantly move the goal posts. Maybe success to you right now looks like opening your own nursery.

But once you’ve done it success to you will look like something else, maybe owning another or making your first million.

But, one things for sure is that none of this will happen immediately.

You will need to have patience.

Do not rush into decisions, always seek wise council.

I’ve made this mistake myself and have told this story many times.

But when I had my first nursery, we sold out very quickly and had a long waiting list of parents wanting to join us.

This led me to feel pressure to expand, even though I probably wasn’t ready.

This led me to rushing and securing a new building for my nursery which wasn’t ideal.

We made it work, but it was a lot of stress and is one the things I regret.

That’s why I stress to be patient in your decisions, try not to rush into things and seek good advice.

If you enrol on the course I will be there to support you to try to help you make the right decisions, based on the experience I have opening a number of nurseries myself and helping numerous others open theirs too.

But, even if you don’t have my support, try to find someone who you can bounce ideas off of and that can advise you when you are potentially making a wrong decision and can tell you to be patient.

It’s so important.

And can help make your childcare business successful.

We are going to take a little break from the 10 things you must do for childcare business success, as this video is getting a bit long and I really want you to take in the first four steps that we’ve gone through so far.

We will continue the final 6 things next week so make sure you subscribe so you don’t miss out on it.

If you want to get started putting some these things into practice and you want to begin opening your own nursery then check out the course open a nursery in just 6 months without a massive budget.

This course will not only support you through the process but also take you through all the steps you need to open up. 

You will start off researching your area to make sure the demand is there to open up and ensure you have the finances to open, then begin looking for a building or preparing your home if you are doing it at home.  Then you will register your business and register with Ofsted. Then finally market your nursery and find staff.  Supporting you all the way up to the big day of actually opening your nursery.

Each section we will be breaking down each thing that you need to do and learn into manageable steps that you can work through at your own pace.

So, whether you want to open a nursery now or in a few years’ time, because you get lifetime access you can enrol today and get started now.

Just click the link on the screen to enrol.

Plus, if you enter the discount code Youtube1 at checkout you can get an extra 10% off the course.

So, get started now and click the link. 

I look forward to supporting you.  God bless.