Approaching Schools

Hosted by Cerys Keneally

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Sep 2026

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About the show

Tips for children's activity providers who want to learn how to approach schools and nurseries without cold calling so they can grow their business, earn a more stable income and have a bigger impact on children's lives. Thrive4Activities are proud sponsors of the Approaching Schools Podcast. Save time and step up your admin software. Take your organisation to the next level with the only provider of advanced booking and club management software, with multi-award winning growth consultancy and personalised advice. Get a free demo and improve your club at https://thrive4activities.com/improve-my-club/?utm_source=Cerys&utm_medium=Podcast

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60 recent

October 26, 202649 min

Closing the SEND Inclusion Gap in Your School Clubs - with Nicole Bateman.

We call on the Government to create a dedicated SEND access support fund within Every Child Can & related enrichment programmes. This fund should be available to eligible community organisations & children’s activity providers when a child with SEND needs additional adult support to participate. This petition is about funding the 1:1/1:2 additional adult support and reasonable adjustments many SEND children need to access activities they love all year-round (not just in holidays). If a child needs 1:1 support Activity Providers are often faced with a hard choice: -They absorb costs, -Ask parents to stay, -Or turn a child away. We believe that Every Child Can should mean every child actually can. Sign the petition here Once you’ve signed the petition, if school or nursery partnerships are on your radar for 2027, download my free “Get Fully Booked in Schools & Nurseries” Roadmap to plan your next steps and bring your inclusive provision to even more children. [Download here] Thanks to our sponsors at Thrive4Activities, you can access your free ThriveHub course, exclusive to Approaching Schools Podcast listeners here. Thrive4Activities is a specialist brand built specifically for children's activity providers and clubs delivering structured activities. Designed around the realities of running an activity business, Thrive4Activities combines practical guidance, learning resources, planning tools and specialist support in one place. Whether you’re looking to attract more families, improve retention, increase income, strengthen your team or save valuable time, Thrive4Activities helps providers focus on what matters most and turn plans into progress. Go to Improve My Club today to get started!

September 21, 202628 min

The Problem With Trying to Get Fully Booked in Schools or Nurseries

Ready to Stop Hoping Schools or Nurseries Book (and Start Knowing How to Fill Your Diary)? If you want more school and nursery bookings, but you don’t want to rely on word of mouth, random enquiries or simply sending more emails, come and join me for my Get Fully Booked in Schools Masterclass. I’ll show you the three things you need to get right to create more consistent school and nursery bookings: how to POSITION what you do so schools see its value, how to APPROACH them in a way that gets attention, and how to SECURE more of those opportunities as bookings. 👉 Join the Get Fully Booked in Schools Masterclass here: https://ceryskeneally.kartra.com/page/fullybookedmasterclass Because the goal isn’t just to get fully booked once. It’s to know how to do it again and again. Thanks to our sponsors at Thrive4Activities, you can access your free ThriveHub course, exclusive to Approaching Schools Podcast listeners here. Thrive4Activities is a specialist brand built specifically for children's activity providers and clubs delivering structured activities. Designed around the realities of running an activity business, Thrive4Activities combines practical guidance, learning resources, planning tools and specialist support in one place. Whether you’re looking to attract more families, improve retention, increase income, strengthen your team or save valuable time, Thrive4Activities helps providers focus on what matters most and turn plans into progress. Go to Improve My Club today to get started!

August 24, 202629 min

The Education System Is Changing… External Providers Will Need to Change With It.

Ready to get more strategic about getting into schools? All of these changes create huge opportunities for external providers… but knowing what's changing in education isn't the same as knowing how to turn that opportunity into consistent school and nursery contracts. Inside the Approaching Schools Academy, you'll learn how school and nursery decision-makers actually think, plan, buy, book and renew… so you can stop guessing what to send, when to approach, who to contact and how to turn interest into longer-term partnerships. The Academy isn't open right now, but the waitlist is! Join the waitlist now for VIP priority access + an exclusive waitlist-only offer before general enrolment opens. Join the Approaching Schools Academy waitlist here: https://ceryskeneally.kartra.com/page/ASA-waitlist Thanks to our sponsors at Thrive4Activities , previously Love admin, you can access your free ThriveHub course, exclusive to Approaching Schools Podcast listeners here. Thrive4Activities is a specialist brand built specifically for children's activity providers and clubs delivering structured activities. Designed around the realities of running an activity business, Thrive4Activities combines practical guidance, learning resources, planning tools and specialist support in one place. Whether you’re looking to attract more families, improve retention, increase income, strengthen your team or save valuable time, Thrive4Activities helps providers focus on what matters most and turn plans into progress. Go to Improve My Club today to get started!

July 27, 202614 min

Has the Word "Extra-Curricular" Been Holding Our Industry Back?

What if the biggest thing holding your business back isn't your marketing... ...it's the identity you've accepted? In this episode, I'm exploring why I believe the children's activity industry has been thinking about itself the wrong way for years. We dive into why labels like activity provider , club provider and extra-curricular provider may be limiting the way schools perceive your organisation, why the best providers aren't "just running sessions", and how shifting your identity can completely transform the way you design programmes, communicate your value and build long-term partnerships with schools. If you've ever felt like schools see your work as a "nice extra" rather than something they genuinely rely on, this conversation is for you. Ready to put this into practice? If this episode made you realise that your website, emails, programme descriptions, packages or proposals are still positioning you as an activity provider rather than an education partner, I'd love to help. Book a School/Nursery Partnership Business Review and I'll personally audit every part of your school-facing presence - from your programme positioning and messaging to your emails, website, resources, packages and proposals. I’ll send you a recording with my insights and a PDF with my recommendations to help you identify exactly where you're unintentionally sounding "optional" and create a clear plan to help schools see the true value of what your organisation brings. Because becoming an Essential Education Partner doesn’t mean upgrading your bio or changing your logo. Instead you’ll want to be building an organisation schools genuinely trust, rely on and want to keep working with year after year. 👉 Book your School/Nursery Partnership Business Review for the summer and let's make sure your September marketing reflects the value you already create. Thanks to our sponsors at Thrive4Activities, you can access your free ThriveHub course, exclusive to Approaching Schools Podcast listeners here. Thrive4Activities is a specialist brand built specifically for children's activity providers and clubs delivering structured activities. Designed around the realities of running an activity business, Thrive4Activities combines practical guidance, learning resources, planning tools and specialist support in one place. Whether you’re looking to attract more families, improve retention, increase income, strengthen your team or save valuable time, Thrive4Activities helps providers focus on what matters most and turn plans into progress. Go to Improve My Club today to get started!

June 22, 202613 min

The £10,000 Mistake Most Providers Make After Sending Their First Email

Now if today's episode has hit a nerve and you've realised your school or nursery outreach currently lives across notebooks, sticky notes, emails and your memory, I've put together something that can help. It's called the Fully Booked In Schools Roadmap and it walks you through the process of building a predictable pipeline of school and nursery opportunities. Get your copy here: https://ceryskeneally.kartra.com/page/free-roadmap And once you've downloaded the roadmap, you'll also find a simple tool to help you track every conversation, follow-up and opportunity so nothing slips through the cracks. Because schools and nurseries aren't ignoring you as much as you think. The bigger question is: Are you keeping track of the opportunities already sitting in front of you With thanks to our sponsors at LoveAdmin If you run a children’s activity business, you’ll know this already. The hard part isn’t the sessions. It’s everything that sits around them. The bookings, the payments, the messages, the registers, the forms… all the moving parts that come with trying to run something properly. That’s where our partner LoveAdmin comes in. It’s not about being the simplest system on the market. It’s about having the right things in place. The kind of functionality that actually reflects how children’s activity businesses are run, and gives you the visibility and control you need as you grow. So instead of patching things together or outgrowing your setup every year, you’ve got one system that supports you to run more efficiently and build something sustainable. If admin is starting to feel like a blocker rather than a support, it’s worth a look… Go to LoveAdmin.com today to get started! Access your free ThriveHub course, exclusive to Approaching Schools Podcast listeners at https://loveadmin.com/cerys-thrivehub/

May 25, 202615 min

Become An Essential Early Years Partner and Build Nursery Partnerships That Last

In this episode of the Approaching Schools podcast, I share why relying only on public classes can keep your income unstable and how building long-term nursery partnerships can change that. I talk about what nursery leaders are really dealing with right now – funding pressures, staff workload, and school readiness, and why they don’t buy “activities”, they buy outcomes. You’ll hear how to reframe what you do so you’re not just running sessions, but actively supporting communication, confidence, physical development and EYFS outcomes, becoming an essential part of a nursery’s provision rather than an optional extra. With thanks to our sponsors at LoveAdmin If you run a children’s activity business, you’ll know this already. The hard part isn’t the sessions. It’s everything that sits around them. The bookings, the payments, the messages, the registers, the forms… all the moving parts that come with trying to run something properly. That’s where our partner LoveAdmin comes in. It’s not about being the simplest system on the market. It’s about having the right things in place. The kind of functionality that actually reflects how children’s activity businesses are run, and gives you the visibility and control you need as you grow. So instead of patching things together or outgrowing your setup every year, you’ve got one system that supports you to run more efficiently and build something sustainable. If admin is starting to feel like a blocker rather than a support, it’s worth a look… Go to LoveAdmin.com today to get started! Access your free ThriveHub course, exclusive to Approaching Schools Podcast listeners at https://loveadmin.com/cerys-thrivehub/

April 20, 202611 min

Why the Summer Term Is Your Biggest Opportunity (If You Understand What Schools Need Right Now)

If you're an established children's activity or wellbeing provider and you're tired of: Sending emails schools and nurseries ignore Piecing together bookings term by term Relying only on public classes for income Then come and work with me and my team in the Approaching Schools Academy, where we will show you a better way. Inside this programme, you will learn a step-by-step strategy so you can implement my Position → Approach → Secure methods used by hundreds of providers in her programmes to build consistent school partnerships and long-term contracts. 👉 Find out more about our final enrolment of the academic year here. With thanks to our sponsors at LoveAdmin If you run a children’s activity business, you’ll know this already. The hard part isn’t the sessions. It’s everything that sits around them. The bookings, the payments, the messages, the registers, the forms… all the moving parts that come with trying to run something properly. That’s where our partner LoveAdmin comes in. It’s not about being the simplest system on the market. It’s about having the right things in place. The kind of functionality that actually reflects how children’s activity businesses are run, and gives you the visibility and control you need as you grow. So instead of patching things together or outgrowing your setup every year, you’ve got one system that supports you to run more efficiently and build something sustainable. If admin is starting to feel like a blocker rather than a support, it’s worth a look… Go to LoveAdmin.com today to get started! Access your free ThriveHub course, exclusive to Approaching Schools Podcast listeners at https://loveadmin.com/cerys-thrivehub/

March 16, 202616 min

The 3 Stages That Turn Schools From “Maybe” Into Long-Term Partnerships

If you're an established children's activity or wellbeing provider and you're tired of: Sending emails schools and nurseries ignore Piecing together bookings term by term Relying only on public classes for income Then the Get Fully Booked In Schools Masterclass will show you a better way. Inside this training, Cerys breaks down the Position → Approach → Secure method used by hundreds of providers in her programmes to build consistent school partnerships and long-term contracts. 👉 Book your free place here With thanks to our sponsors at LoveAdmin If you run a children’s activity business, you’ll know this already. The hard part isn’t the sessions. It’s everything that sits around them. The bookings, the payments, the messages, the registers, the forms… all the moving parts that come with trying to run something properly. That’s where our partner LoveAdmin comes in. It’s not about being the simplest system on the market. It’s about having the right things in place. The kind of functionality that actually reflects how children’s activity businesses are run, and gives you the visibility and control you need as you grow. So instead of patching things together or outgrowing your setup every year, you’ve got one system that supports you to run more efficiently and build something sustainable. If admin is starting to feel like a blocker rather than a support, it’s worth a look… Go to LoveAdmin.com today to get started! Access your free ThriveHub course, exclusive to Approaching Schools Podcast listeners at https://loveadmin.com/cerys-thrivehub/

February 16, 202613 min

Why Schools Don’t Say Yes (Even When They’re Interested)

Approaching Schools LIVE: The Offer Approval Experience On March 28th in central Birmingham, the goal isn’t just to help you create an offer. It’s to help you create an offer that feels safe for schools to approve. An offer that aligns with how schools and nurseries actually make decisions. An offer that reduces risk in the mind of the decision-maker before you ever press send. Because when your offer feels safe to approve, everything changes. Conversations become easier. Responses become more likely. And relationships become possible. If you’d like to join us for this half-day workshop, we’re currently releasing 10 non-member tickets at the early bird rate here now: https://ceryskeneally.kartra.com/page/ApproachingSchoolsLIVE (Approaching Schools Academy members, go to your support group for your members only ticket code) With thanks to our sponsors at LoveAdmin If you run a children’s activity business, you’ll know this already. The hard part isn’t the sessions. It’s everything that sits around them. The bookings, the payments, the messages, the registers, the forms… all the moving parts that come with trying to run something properly. That’s where our partner LoveAdmin comes in. It’s not about being the simplest system on the market. It’s about having the right things in place. The kind of functionality that actually reflects how children’s activity businesses are run, and gives you the visibility and control you need as you grow. So instead of patching things together or outgrowing your setup every year, you’ve got one system that supports you to run more efficiently and build something sustainable. If admin is starting to feel like a blocker rather than a support, it’s worth a look… Go to LoveAdmin.com today to get started! Access your free ThriveHub course, exclusive to Approaching Schools Podcast listeners at https://loveadmin.com/cerys-thrivehub/ Read the transcript here

January 19, 202611 min

Why Schools & Nurseries Can Actually Be Easier to Sell to Than Parents

To grow your partnerships this year, you need to align with how school and nursery decision makers think. This is exactly why I run the Approaching Schools Challenge… because in this free one week training, we don’t just tweak your emails - we retrain your brain from parent-selling to education-partner thinking. That’s when schools and nurseries stop feeling intimidating…and start feeling logical instead! If you’ve ever thought: “I know schools and nurseries need what I do, but I don’t know how to position it” “I freeze when it comes to outreach” “I’m great with parents but stuck with schools” Then the Approaching Schools Challenge is the best place to start! Come and join us at https://www.ceryskeneally.co.uk And once you’ve felt that shift? That’s when working with me and my team this year in the Approaching Schools Academy becomes the natural next step… because it’s where this thinking becomes repeatable, professional and measured, so you can grow your business sustainably this year. With thanks to our sponsors at LoveAdmin If you run a children’s activity business, you’ll know this already. The hard part isn’t the sessions. It’s everything that sits around them. The bookings, the payments, the messages, the registers, the forms… all the moving parts that come with trying to run something properly. That’s where our partner LoveAdmin comes in. It’s not about being the simplest system on the market. It’s about having the right things in place. The kind of functionality that actually reflects how children’s activity businesses are run, and gives you the visibility and control you need as you grow. So instead of patching things together or outgrowing your setup every year, you’ve got one system that supports you to run more efficiently and build something sustainable. If admin is starting to feel like a blocker rather than a support, it’s worth a look… Go to LoveAdmin.com today to get started! *Access Your Free ThriveHub Course Exclusively For Approaching Schools Podcast listeners Here * Read this week's Transcript here

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