Old Station Nursery boss sells four settings

Sarah Steel, managing director of The Old Station Nursery group, has sold four of her ten nurseries to the Children 1st group.

The settings moving to Children 1st are those in Lincoln and Newark, Nottinghamshire. Steel will continue to run the Old Station Nursery’s remaining six nurseries in Oxfordshire, Gloucestershire and Buckinghamshire.

Steel said: “We have been in Lincolnshire for eight years and so had a wide geographic area to cover. I wanted to focus more in the area closer to home.”

This could include further expansion in and around the three counties the group operates in, she added.

This latest acquisition for Children 1st takes their portfolio of nurseries, all in the Midlands and Yorkshire area, to 19 and boosts the number of places it offers from 1,535 to 1,800.

Margaret Mason, Children 1st founder and executive chair, said: “All four nurseries are well-run and have excellent reputations due to the hard work of their staff. We are keen for this to continue and improve where possible through increased training and development.”

Steel added: “I’m confident that Children 1st will continue with the ethos of The Old Station Nursery and they have an excellent track record.”

The Old Station Nursery where Steel successfully overturned an Ofsted decision is in Innsworth, Gloucestershire.

Inspectors were called in after a child was given medication at the wrong time. But inspectors’ subsequent rating of "good" was downgraded by Ofsted inspection contractor Tribal to "satisfactory".

An initial appeal to Tribal by the nursery failed, but a second earlier this year to Ofsted was successful.