Great Boughton Nursery celebrate tigers as part of their Summer Stampede fundraising for Chester Zoo

Children and staff at Kids Planet Great Boughton have been celebrating International Tiger Day as part of their Summer Stampede fundraising campaign to support Chester Zoo.

Great Boughton replicated scenes from the famous book, Tiger Who Came for Tea by Judith Kerr. Both children and staff were encouraged to dress up as tigers as their invitation to the activity-led tea party.

Kids Planet, which now includes Kids Allowed, has launched a timely summer fundraising campaign to support Chester Zoo, due to its significant losses since Covid-19 and its drastic restrictions on visitors for the foreseeable future. The money raised will be used to adopt as many animals as it can. To achieve their goal of £20,000 by the end of September, 7,000 children - aged two to five – will be taking part in sponsored walks, hops, jumps or leaps. Their aim is to cover a collective 1700 miles – which is the sum total of all 52 nursery’s individual mileage to Chester Zoo.

Nursery Manager at Kids Planet Great Boughton, Carly Burrows, explains the many wonderful learning opportunities this animal campaign has afforded:

“As part of our learning through play and child-centred activities, animals feature highly. Our Summer Stampede creates so many learning opportunities to support every age and stage of our children’s development from species, to sounds, to colours, to habitats, to behaviours; the list is endless.

“Our upcoming sponsored walk will see staff and children walking, hopping and even running to help contribute towards the collective 1700 miles that we have set out to complete. As we continue with our fundraising activities, we will also be selling the children’s animal handprint artwork from our animal themed picnic.”

“I would like to thank our staff, children and parents for their support and generosity, we have raised a staggering £400 so far – we are all looking forward to meeting the animals we will be adopting in due course.”

Local families can contact Hale nursery or Kids Planet office to join in on the many fundraising early years-child-centred activities across the NW and the Midlands. To make a donation or get involved please go to the Kids Planet Summer Stampede Justgiving page. You can also join the Kids Planet team on Facebook and Twitter. To find out more details about the Kids Planet nurseries in your area you can visit the Kids Planet website.

Kids Planet was founded in 2008 by John Hoban and his daughter, Clare Roberts, after Clare was unable to find the quality of childcare she wanted for her own children and the flexibility around her work. Clare’s sister (John’s other daughter) Lucy Kaczmarska is a trained early years and primary school teacher and joined the family business as Childcare Director in 2013.

Kids Planet is the number one childcare provider for quality in the UK and, with its current number of nursery settings standing at 52 (including 12 Kids Allowed nurseries which were acquired in January 2020), it is also the third largest group in the UK.

The business currently provides quality childcare for 7,000 children and employs 2,000 childcare staff across the settings and a further 65 at head office in Lymm, Warrington.

Whilst the company is largely based in the North West and the Midlands it has plans to extend its quality offering across the UK and overseas in the near future.