Tappy Toes Franchise | Turn Your Love of Dance Into a Flexible Family Business

Turn Your Love of Dance Into a Flexible Family Business

The Tappy Toes Franchise is one of the most beloved children's activity franchises available, combining a passion for dance with a genuinely flexible business model. Founded by Claire Munday, a professional dancer and former backing performer, Tappy Toes was created to fill a gap in the market for structured, joyful dance classes that cater to the very youngest children. Since its founding, the brand has expanded to more than 30 franchises across the country and made its first international moves into Dubai.

What Makes Tappy Toes Different

Tappy Toes is not a standard dance school franchise. It is a family-friendly, flexible business specifically designed to work around your life. Franchisees choose their own class days, times and term dates. Many run their Tappy Toes business alongside school pickups, family commitments and other obligations. The brand's ethos is built around the phrase "work for yourself, not by yourself," and every franchisee benefits from strong head office support from day one.

Four Age-Specific Programmes

The Tappy Toes syllabus has been developed specifically for children from six months through to six years, covering four distinct age groups:

What Franchisees Say

The Tappy Toes Franchise has won Best Franchise Support in independent franchisee satisfaction awards for two consecutive years, with 96 per cent overall satisfaction across the network. One franchisee in Chelmsford, starting as a single parent working a 4am shift job, built her Tappy Toes business to a turnover exceeding £60,000 within four years, doubling her revenue year on year.

Training, Support and What's Included

Your initial training covers four days in total. Two days are spent in person at a Tappy Toes location in Hertfordshire, where you will learn the syllabus, practice delivery techniques and shadow live classes. Two days are delivered via video call, covering social media setup, marketing strategy, retention planning and business administration.

• ✓Full access to the Tappy Toes booking and CRM system
• ✓A branded page on the Tappy Toes website, optimised for your local area
• ✓Access to the Trustist review platform with hundreds of existing five-star reviews
• ✓A starter kit of props and equipment for your classes
• ✓Ongoing mentorship, regular webinars and support from head office

Investing in Tappy Toes

The initial franchise fee is £7,995 plus VAT, making this one of the most accessible franchise opportunities available. This includes full training, your starter kit, use of the Tappy Toes brand and ongoing support. The ongoing royalty fee is 10 per cent of monthly turnover. Funding support is available through a NatWest franchise advisor and via government Start-Up Loans if needed.

Average franchisee turnover is around £30,000 per year, with a number of the network exceeding £40,000 to £50,000 annually. There is no upper ceiling as the business is scalable through multiple venues and additional teachers.

How the Brand Was Built

Tappy Toes began in 2005 in Watford, where Claire Munday was teaching dance alongside her career as a professional performer. After touring with artists including Destiny's Child, KT Tunstall and Katherine Jenkins, she noticed there was almost nothing structured on the market for the under-threes. She borrowed £250 from a friend to trademark the name and wrote the first syllabus around what very young children actually responded to: bubbles, glow sticks, soft props and a mixed playlist moving between nursery rhymes, pop, musical theatre and gentle ballet. The brand traded as a single-operator class for several years before formal franchising launched in 2013, which is why almost every territory today benefits from a syllabus that was stress-tested in real classes long before it was rolled out.

The UK Pre-School Activity Market

Demand for structured under-five classes has held up strongly through the cost-of-living squeeze. Parents have continued to prioritise short, weekly activities that combine social time with developmental benefit, and daytime slots in particular have become more competitive as more families have one parent on flexible or part-time hours. The Department for Education's 2025 childcare and early years provider survey shows continued growth in the early-years sector, which feeds directly into nursery and pre-school partnerships of the type Tappy Toes franchisees build in their territories.

A Typical Week in the Business

A franchisee running a mid-size Tappy Toes territory will typically deliver between six and twelve weekly classes during term time, spread across two to four mornings. Venues are normally church halls, community centres or studio spaces hired by the hour, which keeps fixed overheads low and lets operators flex up or down each term. Around the teaching hours sit short blocks of admin: bookings, customer messages, social media, term planning and equipment prep. Many franchisees deliberately stop work at the school gate and pick up again once children are settled in the evening.

Awards, Recognition and the Wider Network

Tappy Toes was named Gold winner for Best Franchisee Support and Silver for Best Adaptation to Change at the Virtual Franchising Awards run by Barclays and the Quality Franchise Association, recognising the brand's decision to waive fees and rebuild around online classes during the 2020-21 lockdowns. Claire was also short-listed for Creative Entrepreneur of the Year at the Great British Entrepreneur Awards. At the most recent franchise conference, individual operators were recognised across Biggest Growth, Highest Turnover, Most Weekly Classes, Most Weekly Nursery Sessions and a ten-year tenure milestone.

Territories and Coverage

Each Tappy Toes franchisee is awarded a large exclusive territory, with availability across most of the UK and growing international markets following the brand's expansion into Dubai. Territories are sized to give operators enough population density to scale through multiple venues, additional teachers and nursery contracts without bumping into a neighbouring franchisee. Head office walks candidates through territory mapping during the discovery process.

Who Suits This Franchise

The strongest fit tends to be someone who wants the structure and brand recognition of a proven model, but needs the working week to flex around children, caring responsibilities or another part-time commitment. A dance or teaching background is genuinely not required: the network includes former primary-school teachers, ex-corporate professionals, parents returning to work and operators who came in with no prior performance experience at all. What matters more is comfort being in front of groups of small children and their grown-ups, willingness to follow a defined syllabus rather than freestyle, and the discipline to do the marketing and admin work that sits behind a busy class schedule. Candidates who already have local community ties, a driveable territory and the appetite to grow through nursery contracts as well as public classes usually ramp fastest.

Interested in exploring more opportunities in this sector? Take a look at other children's franchise opportunities available on Franchise Hunt.