I always knew I wanted to create something of my own rather than climb the educational career ladder. After teaching for a few years, I took a year off to travel. Whilst lying on a beach in Goa, I came up with the idea of a tutoring agency. I started this new business when I got home and it began to grow steadily.

In the summer of 2000, a newspaper article highlighted children falling back academically over the summer holidays, which inspired me to start a holiday club where children could learn academic subjects through play. Initially only four children attended, but I saw this as a promising start! The club grew rapidly, and by the end of that summer, there were 15-20 children attending. I switched the focus from learning academically through play and created a space that was all about play. Enriching children’s lives through fun activities and connection.

In the early days, I did everything myself. Working all hours to cover every aspect of the business. Before long, I was in six locations, offering Breakfast, After School and Holiday Clubs. The organisation grew at an incredible speed and I was asked to open more clubs, as my reputation spread. Whilst growing and scaling, I was determined to ensure the vision and values I’d established in the first club were living and breathing in every club.

By the time I got to 6 clubs, I considered selling the company, as it had grown too big for me to manage by myself. Instead I made the decision to ask Tanya to go into partnership with me. This enabled us to further expand our company with planned sustainable growth. We had a great time working together building a brilliant team of 150+ and an organisation with quality at its core.

We grew to 17 locations serving over 3,500 families. We sold the business in December 2019. In hindsight, this was perfect timing!

After selling, Tanya and I planned a short break before starting a new venture. However, the break was unexpectedly extended due to Covid and Home Schooling.

During this time, I founded Hexagon Hive and trained to deliver courses in Mental Health, having seen the impact lockdowns were having on mental health. I worked with organisations to create resilient and understanding workplaces, where teams felt understood and where organisations could thrive.

I feel I have come full circle back to where I am meant to be…working with Out of School Providers delivering Mentoring, Consulting and Training - backed by experience and delivered with integrity!

Helping providers to grow their organisations from one or two settings to multiple settings. Sharing my knowledge and experience of being in their shoes expanding with quality, consistency and people at it’s core.

I help organisations develop and grow whilst staying true to their vision and values. Ensuring they get it right for themselves, their teams, the children, families and other stakeholders.

I've experienced every aspect of the founder's journey and appreciate how lonely it can sometimes be when you’re leading an organisation. Receiving the right support at the right time helped me grow and scale sustainably. I love supporting others, sharing insights and strategies, as well as pitfalls to avoid, so they can grow and scale sustainably too. A recent mentee said I’d helped ‘re-ignite a spark in him and his business’.

I am excited to be working on the Club Central Conference this year, creating a programme to bring providers together to be inspired, learn and connect.

If you feel you would benefit from working with me to ‘re-ignite your spark’ or to scale and grow your organisation whilst ensuring you get it right for you, your team, children and parents then please do get in touch for a chat.

I also work with Local Authorities to deliver training and mentoring to their providers. Contact me at sam@hexagonhive.co.uk