Directors at childcare organisation Busy Bees are leading by example as the company works towards reaching the Government's development targets ahead of schedule.

The UK’s longest-established national provider of childcare and education has put 36 of its directors and managers on a leadership and management training programme.

The programme has been designed and delivered by management training company Acua at Busy Bees’ Burntwood headquarters in Staffordshire and Crawley, West Sussex as the company sets about making sure all its centres are graduate-led by 2015.

This also follows a need for improvement in leadership and management skills in the UK, an area of competitive weakness in the economy and widely acknowledged as a key driver for economic growth.

The development programmes are tailored to suit each individual client and are led by its business coaches at clients’ premises as employees work towards gaining higher education skills and qualifications accredited by Acua’s parent organisation, Coventry University.

Busy Bees HR director, Clare Phizacklea, said: "Soon every manager based at all of our childcare centres will have to be qualified to degree level," she said.

"To earn qualifications through programmes that have been designed with our company objectives at the forefront, and are directly linked to the tasks we perform day in day out, will have a massive impact on this process.

"Previously the majority of training involved employees working towards achieving NVQs and general degrees but this new work-based learning programme has far more benefit to the company as it takes in modules centred around cultural change within the company as well as personal and team development.

"The senior management team has really taken to the challenges it faces and I’m sure the programme will have considerable impact on the development of each and every one of the childcare centre managers. The flexible blended approach to learning ensured the learning was relevant and convenient to our roles. We took part in one-to-one coaching and group sessions that fit around our working day."