From a scout hut to eight settings without a bigger back office
Abie Sanford opened one preschool in a scout hut. Today Enchanted Wood is eight settings strong — and when her admin manager retired, she never needed to replace the role.
Growth usually brings more admin. Enchanted Wood’s story is the opposite: as the group grew, the back office stayed lean because the day-to-day work of running nurseries lived in one connected system.
More settings. Not more administrators.
Enchanted Wood Preschool began in a scout hut in 2011. Over the years that followed, Abie Sanford grew the group to eight settings and a team of 147 — without building a larger admin function to keep pace.
When the group’s admin manager retired, the work did not need replacing as a separate role. Registers, funding, invoicing, staffing and parent communication already lived in Nursery in a Box, so the operational load stayed with the system rather than with another hire.
Eight settings. One connected system. Around £50k saved a year.
Enchanted Wood Preschool · Bexley
A nursery group that grows on the floor, not in the office
For owners considering a second, third or eighth setting, the question is rarely whether the children will be cared for well. It is whether the admin will scale with them. Enchanted Wood’s experience is that it does not have to — when the platform carries the work that used to need a dedicated back office.
Your nursery, your next chapter
Sit down with the founders and talk through how your setting runs day to day — the same conversation every owner here started with.