Queen's Birthday Honours: Founder of Hopscotch Day Nurseries 'incredibly proud' to be made an MBE for services to early years

Freya Derrick, who is the founder and managing director of Hopscotch Day Nurseries, has helped signpost military families to support groups for children, providing special resources to help them cope while their parents are deployed.

The 47-year-old mum set up the first of Hopscotch’s nurseries in Gosport in 2005 and over the past 17 years the day care facility has branched out to Fareham, Lee-on-the-Solent, Titchfield, Eastleigh, Portswood, Botley and Regents Park.

Three of these were acquired in the middle of the pandemic.

Freya employs more than 295 staff who she is ‘incredibly proud’ of and retained her workforce during the pandemic encouraging them to pursue their career progression.

After discovering that she’d been made an MBE, Freya said it was ‘completely surprising’, and added: ‘It’s a huge accolade. It’s really special that it coincides with the jubilee and the birthday honours. It’s just lovely.

‘After two very complex years of navigating for everybody, not just early years but for families across the UK, to stick a letter in the post like that is completely surprising and I'm incredibly proud.’

During her time at the nursery Freya has helped families deal with deployment-related issues.

After an official from the Department of Health visited the Gosport nursery in the early days to provide iodine tablets due to concerns over nuclear powered vessels, it dawned on Freya that she was in a high naval area and staff needed to do more to meet the needs of children with armed forces parents.

Now the nurseries, particularly those near naval bases like Gosport and Lee-on-the-Solent, have helped children connect with their parents even while a guardian is on deployment through sharing images of the children to a software package accessible to parents, which parents can send back pictures to as well.

This is just one resource on top of making home books filled with family pictures for the children, as well as ‘lots of’ provisions from the navy to take the pressure off of families.

In 2016, Freya was a finalist in the Hampshire Regional Business Owner of the year awards which recognises successful women who have excelled in their job.