Nursery World - Nursery Management: Case Study

Sue Learner on a young manager taking on the challenge of turning round a Harlow lossmaker.

Having worked in childcare since the age of 16, Emma Pike decided to go that extra step and start running her own nursery.

She is now 29 and has just taken over the Gateway Nursery in Harlow, Essex. As well as it being her first nursery, she has acquired a site that was losing money and is determined to turn it around.

'All my family is in childcare and I started off working for my aunt who runs a nursery,' she says. 'At 19, I became a manager and have always dreamed of having my own nursery.

'At Gateway, I have changed quite a lot of things already. I have managed to make the toddler room bigger and more spacious by combining two of the rooms into one. I want to make one of the big cupboards into a baby massage area so we can have mums come in and do massage with their babies. I want to have a sensory area and the outside play area now has a baby area,' she says.

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