York's Muddy Boots nursery group wins at Biz-X awards

Muddy Boots Nurseries has four sites in and around York - Poppleton, Acomb, Wilberfoss and Stamford Bridge.

The nursery group beat off hundreds of competitors to be named the "best service based business" in the country at the Biz-X awards in Liverpool on April 19

The award comes soon after a second out of the group's four sites was rated 'outstanding' by Ofsted. The Stamford Bridge site received the outstanding rating in March this year, just under a year after the Poppleton site received the same endorsement.

Muddy Boots nursery, Stamford Bridge (Image: Supplied)

The owners of the nursery group, Andy and Anna Nimmo, said: "We are absolutely over the moon to have won the best service based business award at the National Biz-X Awards, as well as being a finalist in the best marketing campaign award.

"Service is at the heart of all we do, serving the children in our care, the families who trust us to do so, and our outstanding team.

"To have that recognised nationally was amazing, especially in a room of 1,500 plus business people from all over the UK.

"To win that, as well as attaining two Ofsted outstandings in 12 months makes for a very special year at Muddy Boots.

The team at Muddy Boots accepting their award (Image: Supplied)

"None of those achievements would be possible without our incredible team, who work tirelessly to give Muddy Boots its magic and we are so proud of them and all we have achieved together."

Muddy Boots' marketing manager, Matthew Allton, reflected on the group's progress since first being a finalist in the same category two years ago.

Matthew said: "We were over the moon. We’ve grown by two nurseries from when we were first a finalist.

"This year just feels like it can’t get any better in a work sense.

"We’re a set of nurseries, we’re a business that’s there to serve people and serve families.

"Childcare is always our number one focus, but knowing as a business that we’re sustainable and having that recognised is just brilliant."

Inside a Muddy Boots site (Image: Supplied)

Matthew also explained some of the lengths Muddy Boots goes to when trying to improve its service. He said: "We do all sorts of things, we survey a cross section of every family in the nursery, every week, in all areas.

"We want regular feedback from every setting to know what we’re doing well and what we aren’t doing well."

The nursery group is now hoping to get a clean sweep of 'Outstanding' ratings from Ofsted, with its Wilberfoss and Acomb sites awaiting a new inspection.