A well-established childcare provider with a nursery in Richmond Upon Thames has joined forces with one of the UK’s leading suppliers of early years apprenticeships in a new partnership.

Kids Inc Nurseries, which has a nursery in East Sheen and 11 others across Essex, Kent, Surrey, Berkshire and other parts of the South East, have appointed Realise as its training provider.

A total of almost 1,000 children attend the nurseries and staff will largely undertake training for the Level 2 Early Years Practitioner Apprenticeship and Level 3 Early Years Educator Apprenticeship.

Teresa Brooke, Director of Childcare & Education at Kids Inc Nurseries, said: “This is a significant development for us and will continue to enhance the education and childcare service we are able to offer children who attend our nurseries.

“We will have a mixture of new employees entering the industry for the first time and existing colleagues who will be upskilling going through the apprenticeship programme.

“The work Realise is doing with other nurseries caught our eye and we have been very impressed with all of the conversations we have had with them in recent weeks.

“It’s a great opportunity to not only continue developing our offering to families in the areas in which we operate but also for our colleagues to enhance their own careers by securing qualifications.

“We have ambitious plans to expand so the quality of our training provision is hugely important and we are very confident we are in the best possible hands with Realise.”

Realise works with 550 nurseries and supported more than 1,000 learners in 2021.

Karen Derbyshire, Head of the Early Years and Education sector at Realise, said: “We are delighted to be working with Kids Inc Nurseries and to have extended the portfolio of nurseries we work in partnership with.

“Kids Inc Nurseries have an excellent reputation and we are excited to help develop their offering by guiding its hard working and talented staff through apprenticeships.”

Realise provides first class skills, education and employment services to more than 7,000 learners and thousands of employers across a host of sectors in the UK every year.