BABY COLLEGE

After 10 years of working as a qualified Secondary School Teacher of Modern Foreign Languages, I had returned to work part-time during that time after having both my children. I knew I wanted to continue to work in education and use my teaching skills, but I found the demands and heavy workload of secondary teaching difficult to combine with having a young family and a work/life balance.

Baby College appealed to me as it offered the opportunity to have a good work/life balance and have more control over my time, my teaching hours, and to be able to be present and available for my young children during their early school years.

I was very interested in the unique development insights the classes offered and also keen to be involved in a role that supported new parents and helped to alleviate the isolation and anxiety that can come with becoming a parent for the first time. It meant I could work around school hours and school holidays, but also use my skills and experience to run a successful business working with parents and young children and supporting new parents in their first steps on their parenting journeys, something which appealed to me and interested me.

I made the final decision to go for it after contacting two existing franchisees, and meeting the Directors of Baby College in person for an informal interview and chat.

I knew I had found the right franchise after a year or so into running the business – I was enjoying the day to day teaching of classes but also was steadily growing my class numbers and my reputation and word of mouth was steadily increasing to the point that I began to actually earn a reasonable income from it, and was also managing to maintain a good work/life balance. I looked forward to going to work every day and found it very rewarding working with young families but also being able to be in control of my own working pattern.

I used private savings to purchase the Franchise.

I sought out some legal advice from a friend when looking at the contract and also discussed it in detail with my husband, who had been running his own business for a few years and had some experience with the legal side of things.

For me, the benefits of running a franchise compared to starting your own business are that you have a network of support around you and you are not entirely alone – this appealed to me as it can be a rather lonely/daunting experience initially and it can be very helpful to be able to have support in the areas that you perhaps feel less confident in when first starting, for example technology, social media, the financial side of running a business. As I had come from a teaching background, running a business was a huge learning curve for me initially, and I found it very helpful to have colleagues to be able to share good practice and ideas with.

I find running a franchise fits in very well with my lifestyle, as it has enabled me to be present for my children and to organise my time and my working hours in a way that suits me and my family. I would definitely recommend it to someone with young children, looking to maintain a good work/life balance and wanting to take on a new challenge. There is a certain level of risk involved of course, and you need to be prepared for that, and also to be prepared for the fact that you will have to put a lot of work in initially to get your business off the ground and begin making an income. If you are prepared to see the long-term benefits and realise that it will probably take a year to 18 months to establish your Franchise business, then you will have the resilience and stamina to survive the difficult early months!

In terms of the financial rewards, after 6 years of running the Baby College West Oxfordshire Franchise, I am turning over between £35,000 and £38,000 in class sales per year, resulting in a profit (after deduction of business expenses and Franchise Licence Fees) of about £28,000 – £32,000 per year for 3 mornings a week of teaching (9.30am- 12.30pm) and about 4-6 hours per week of admin and preparation, which compares very favourably to any other part time job in a similar field or sector.