The finalists for the prestigious What’s On 4 Kids Activities Awards 2020, with Morton Michel, have now been announced – and babyballet® and several of their franchises are amongst them!

These pioneering awards were launched in 2007 to celebrate the UK’s best children’s clubs and classes, along with leaders and volunteers – as nominated and voted for by the experts – parents, carers and parents-to-be.

This year more than any other year these National awards are an important recognition of the crucial role children’s activities play in the lives of families across the UK – and how the dedicated people who make these activities possible have done everything they can to keep classes running online during lockdown – and now are getting back to in-class sessions that are safe and just as beneficial to the health and well-being of children and parents.

The babyballet® brand is officially a finalist in the Most Loved Music, Dance or Performing Arts Activity (Franchisor with 20+ leaders) category which means they are invited to the first ever virtual ceremony for these award on 8th October 2020, live and online with Red Book Productions and hosted by Jonathan Bremner. Several babyballet® franchises and teachers have also made it to the prestigious final in a range of categories (please see below).

Now in its 14^th year, this National awards programme welcomes the return of headline sponsor Morton Michel and repeat supporters STA, ClassBiz and NatWest.  Parents and carers logged on to the What’s On 4 Kids website to cast a massive 50,000 nominations and votes to ensure that their ‘most-loved’ were in the running.

There are 30 exciting categories in total ranging from ‘Most-Loved New Activity’ and ‘Most-Loved Activity Leader’ across the regions to the highly esteemed ‘Industry Champion of the Year’ which is judged by the Children’s Activities Association Board of Trustees.

New for 2020 is the addition of more judged awards recognising some exceptional accomplishments including Remarkable Achievement and Inspiring Business Growth.  And alongside these new categories are 3 new judges, all respected experts in their fields: Vincenzo Roberti, Michelle Reeves and Gemma Metcalfe-Beckers.

The incredible Lucy Crabtree, 25 year old Marketing Manager at babyballet® Head Office is in the running to win the Remarkable Achievement award, for her efforts in leading the annual charity campaigns that have raised almost 1 million pounds.

babyballet® classes provide the opportunity for babies and young children to learn to dance and develop key life skills in a healthy, sociable, caring and safe environment. The successful babyballet® programme, founded 15 years ago in the United Kingdom, is now also available in Australia, New Zealand, and Singapore.

The whole babyballet® network are thrilled with this recognition and after bringing home the title in this category last year, have their fingers crossed about becoming champions for the second year running.

Morton Michel explained why they are supporting these awards for the third year:

‘We are delighted to be the headline sponsor for the National What’s On 4 Kids Activities Awards once again! At Morton Michel we have over 54 years’ experience in childcare insurance and have been providing specialist cover for childcare groups for over 40 years. As a founding member of the Children’s Activities Association we are passionate about raising the professional standards in this area of the childcare industry and these awards are a fantastic opportunity to recognise the very best of the UK’s kids’ clubs, classes and teachers!’

NatWest Group Press Office added:

‘At NatWest Group we want to help entrepreneurs and small businesses to start, scale and succeed, and as the lifeblood of the UK economy its now more important than ever that they can access our support.  We are delighted to be supporting the 14th National What’s On 4 Kids Activities Awards. We congratulate all the businesses who have made it through to this exciting final stage and we are looking forward to seeing the final event.’

What’s On 4 Kids Managing Director, Sam Willoughby, concludes:

‘Each and every year it’s a pleasure to welcome back so many activities, keen to be part of these National awards once again but it’s also so exciting to see the new nominees especially during such a challenging year. We know from parents’ testimonials how clubs, classes and individual leaders have such a positive impact on the lives of their children and it’s an honour therefore to publicly recognise and celebrate these activity providers in this way. Huge thank you to Morton Michel, our judges and all our sponsors and supporters as well as the thousands of parent voters for being such a massive part of the What’s On 4 Kids Activities Awards 2020’.

babyballet is back!

After dancing online throughout lockdown, we are so excited to be back in our physical classes and dancing with our little stars again in person …

Please rest assured we have been doing everything we can to transition back into our classes safely and effectively, including working alongside the Children’s Activities Association, local authorities and our venues to be as thorough as we can at all times. All of our classes have COVID secure measures in place and we are practising social ‘dis-DANCING’ at all of our venues. We have a 3 week introductory trial available for you and your little star to come along and have lots of fun before signing up to the full term – please click here to find out more!