Two new franchisees are kick-starting the Little Messy Learners business in Australia. The UK-based children’s play service is looking to sign a franchisee in each state by the end of 2020.
Jessica Martin in Wyndham and Hobsons Bay, VIC and Jenny Smith in Mandurah and Rockingham, WA signed up earlier this year as the initial franchisees.
Both women are mothers of young children. Jessica previously worked as a family support worker, disability and forensic outreach worker and in child protection; she was looking for a more flexible career. Jenny was a volunteer playgroup president in Three Springs.
Little Messy Learners founder Rachel Fay told Inside Franchise Business “Our franchise is perfect for someone who is passionate about children’s early years, is ready for a new challenge and keen to own their own business. It’s also brilliantly flexible and fits perfectly around family life. The majority of our franchisees actually take their children to work with them which is just great!”
The business model offers weekly, one hour pre-school/parent and baby unstructured play classes. Parents book a term of sessions and over the period children learn marks which form the basis of every letter, number, shape and pattern.
Little Learners was founded in January 2015 and today numbers 34 franchisees across the UK.
Fay said the business recently ranked at number 37 in the UK’s Top 100 Franchises and won Best Franchisor of the Year in the ‘mumandworking’ awards,” she said.
“We give our franchisees access to lots of training, guidance, policies and support in terms of running their Little Messy Learners classes and everything else that comes with owning their business as a sole trader,” she said.
“We have exciting plans in the pipeline for our early writing programme (which the messy play classes are based upon) and hopefully this will be recognised throughout schools in Australia too which we believe will raise the profile of our franchise opportunity further.”
Fay said the business is already a finalist for several ‘What’s on 4 kids’ awards in Australia.
“We’ll be offering a range of supporting merchandise soon so that parents can continue the learning at home. This will also represent an additional income stream for franchisees.”