Families out and about in Manchester this weekend should keep their eyes peeled, as free books and activities for children will be popping up across the city. A selection of stories, stickers, and games will be hidden across parks, museums and children’s centres to mark the launch of a new early years education initiative coming to Manchester.

The free gifts, which have been curated for the under-5s and are free to anyone who finds them, will be placed throughout the city centre between Friday and Sunday. The treasure hunt is being organised by tiney, the childminding initiative launched by the Founder of Teach First.

Tiney trains people to become highly-skilled childminders and open nurseries in their own homes, helping to provide excellent early years education for children whilst offering better childcare options for local families. After launching in the South East last year, they are now expanding to the Greater Manchester area.

Tiney hopes to recruit and train over 500 new childminders in the area over the next 6 months to relieve the current strain on families and childcare services in Manchester. Across England, there’s been a 35% increase in the number of nurseries closing down thanks to the pandemic. And one in five nursery staff are thinking of leaving their roles.

Tiney hopes that the prospect of higher salaries (thanks to the low overheads associated with childminding) and the autonomy that comes from working from home, will help attract a new generation of early years educators in Manchester.

Jenny Armstrong, a mum of 4 based in Rochdale, has become one of the first new recruits to sign up to the childminder training. She comments:

“I’m loving the training so far. There’s lots of flexibility and I’m getting loads of support from the team. Training with Tiney is a lot less stressful than doing it on your own and having to navigate things like Ofsted by yourself. Tiney genuinely wants everyone to succeed!”

People interested in retraining with the initiative are welcome to attend one of the many drop-in events being organised across the area in the coming weeks.

Brett Wigdortz, CEO of tiney and founder of graduate teaching initiative Teach First, which has helped placed over a thousand teachers in Greater Manchester since 2006, comments:

“We’re thrilled to be launching in Manchester. We need a strong early years sector if our children are going to thrive during their school years and highly-skilled childminders are the best way of delivering this. We are looking forward to training up hundreds of new early years educators over the coming months and opening home nurseries that parents can rely on. We hope local families have fun finding our tiney gifts over the weekend and that their little ones enjoy the treats we’ve picked out!”