Laura Davitt and Carly Pryke of Fixation Academy: How to Scale Without Losing the Community People Came For

There’s a point in business where growth starts to change the job completely. You’re no longer just delivering the thing you love. You’re building a team, creating systems, opening new locations, managing customer experience and trying to make sure the business still feels like you even when you’re no longer in every room.

That’s exactly what made my conversation with Laura Davitt and Carly Pryke, Academy Directors of Fixation Academy of Performing Arts, so interesting.

Fixation Academy of Performing Arts started with one class in 2012 and has grown into two academies, more than 30 weekly classes, after-school clubs, holiday camps and full-scale productions across North London and Hertfordshire. Yet despite that growth, Laura and Carly have deliberately remained independent, building the foundations carefully before deciding what the next stage should look like.

They are finalists for Strategic Partnership of the Year, sponsored by Bex Howe from Howe to Consultancy, and Children’s Activity Provider of the Year, sponsored by Thrive4Activities, at The Class Business Awards 2026.

And I think their story is such a good reminder that scaling doesn’t have to mean rushing to replicate your business everywhere. Sometimes the smarter route is to make the existing model stronger first.

Growth can be big without being franchised

Fixation has been growing for well over a decade, but Laura and Carly have resisted the pressure to rush into franchising before they felt the business was ready.

Laura explained:

“The last few years we really nailed down all of our policies and procedures and I do feel like we’re actually at the kind of space that we could start exploring that for sure.”

That’s a really important distinction. They haven’t avoided growth. They’ve already grown significantly. What they’ve done is build independently first, learning what works, strengthening operations and making sure the foundations are robust before considering another model.

And that matters because by the time you start scaling through other people, you need to know exactly what you’re asking them to replicate.

For Fixation, that means being clear on:

• the ethos and standards that sit behind every class
• how teachers communicate and deliver
• what families should experience wherever they attend
• the policies and systems that protect consistency
• what parts of the business can flex without weakening the brand

That groundwork may not be the glamorous part of scaling, but it’s what makes the next stage possible.

Stepping out of delivery changes everything

Laura and Carly are now at the point where they no longer teach the weekly classes themselves.

That’s a huge transition for any founder-led class business because the quality of the customer experience can no longer depend on you personally being in the room.

As they said:

“We’re definitely in the position now where we don’t actually teach classes and we haven’t done for quite a long time.”

Instead, they’ve built a strong core team of teachers who deliver week in, week out, supported by a wider pool of staff for seasonal work such as holiday camps.

The challenge then becomes communication. How do you make sure the team understands the ethos, the voice and the standards of the business when the founders can’t be everywhere at once?

Laura and Carly were really open about the fact that this has taken time. They’ve had to work hard on training, communication and making sure the team understands what Fixation is trying to create, not just what activity is being delivered.

That is the bit of team growth people often underestimate. Hiring someone to teach the class is one thing. Teaching them how to represent the brand is something else entirely.

Don’t open a class just because you can

One of my favourite practical parts of this interview was their advice around expansion.

Laura and Carly have learned the hard way that opening a new class or location without enough lead-in time can be expensive, and that one of the simplest tools is also one of the most powerful: the waiting list.

They said:

“You can have a class that’s gonna start in September. Keep a waiting list for a whole term or half a term.”

That gives you something concrete before you start committing to venues, staff and marketing spend.

Their growth approach now includes:

• building demand before launch
• using waiting lists to test interest
• partnering with local organisations
• exploring funding to support accessibility
• selling first to families who already know and trust the brand

That last point is especially important. As they put it, “it’s easier to sell to people who already have bought in.”

Sometimes the next class doesn’t need a completely new audience. It needs a better understanding of the audience you’ve already built.

Relationships take time to turn into results

The same applies to holiday camps.

When Fixation first moved beyond weekly classes into camp provision, it was a big jump and came with more risk. Some of the early camps were quiet, and Laura and Carly had to trust that the relationships they were building with schools and families would eventually pay off.

Their advice was simple:

“Trusting that building the relationships and the core and the foundation is going to have a reward eventually, but don’t expect it straight away.”

That line is so relevant to anyone who has launched something new and panicked because the first few weeks weren’t immediately packed.

Not every offer explodes on day one.

Sometimes growth comes from repeatedly showing up, building trust, refining the experience and letting word of mouth compound.

Fixation’s current scale proves the point. In 2025 alone, they reached roughly 2,500 to 2,600 unique children, many of whom were returning weekly.

That’s not overnight growth. That’s accumulated trust.

Customer feedback is only useful if you actually want the truth

Another thing Fixation does brilliantly is staying close to families even though Laura and Carly no longer teach.

They remain visible, speak to parents regularly, use WhatsApp communities, send surveys after major events and have created a parent champion group to test ideas and gather feedback.

But what I really liked was their attitude towards that feedback.

They said:

“We don’t necessarily want the fluffy stuff or the good stuff. We wanna know the bad things.”

That is such a strong business mindset.

Positive testimonials are brilliant for marketing, but they don’t necessarily tell you how to improve. Laura and Carly ask parents specifically about the difference they’ve seen in their child, why they attend and what could be better, then turn that information into data they can actually use.

That means customer feedback becomes useful in several ways:

• it shows whether the outcomes you say you create are genuinely being experienced
• it highlights weaknesses before they become bigger problems
• it gives evidence for awards, partnerships and funding
• it helps shape future services
• it keeps the founders connected to what families actually want

It’s a much stronger approach than simply collecting nice comments and filing them away.

Scale doesn’t have to kill the family feel

What’s especially impressive is that Fixation has grown substantially without losing the sense of community that families originally bought into.

Children can join at three and stay into their teenage years. Siblings come. Cousins follow. Some young people eventually ask Laura and Carly for university references.

That kind of retention tells you something bigger than attendance numbers.

The business has become part of people’s lives.

Fixation offers acting, singing, dance and musical theatre, alongside exams, qualifications and productions, but Laura and Carly are very clear that the final performance is not the only thing that matters.

They described themselves as inclusive, with children from different backgrounds and with different abilities welcomed into the same community. For some, performing arts is the beginning of a serious career path. For others, it’s about confidence, friendships and simply having somewhere they belong.

That breadth is part of what makes the business distinctive.

Strong partnerships expand what the business can offer

Their Strategic Partnership of the Year finalist status also makes complete sense when you look at how much of Fixation’s growth has been built through relationships with schools, families and local organisations.

Partnerships have helped them expand after-school provision, build holiday camps and explore funding that can make activities more accessible to families.

And this is where I think there’s a lesson for a lot of class business owners.

Growth doesn’t always have to mean launching another product entirely by yourself.

Sometimes it can come from asking:

• Who already has access to the families we want to reach?
• Which organisations share our values?
• Where could we create something stronger together?
• What relationships could reduce the risk of launching somewhere new?
• How can partnership make the offer more accessible?

Strategic partnerships can create reach, credibility and opportunities that would take much longer to build alone.

The next stage should be built on what already works

Fixation is now approaching its 15-year anniversary, with plans to grow school partnerships further, open another holiday camp location and potentially explore franchising in the future.

What I like about their story is that none of this feels like growth for the sake of growth.

They’ve spent years learning what families value, strengthening their systems, building a teaching team and staying close to the community. So if franchising does become part of the future, they’ll be scaling something they understand inside out.

That’s the bigger lesson here.

You don’t have to choose between growth and community.

But you do have to be intentional about protecting the things people loved before the business got bigger.

Watch the full interview

In our full conversation, Laura and Carly share how Fixation grew from one class into a multi-location performing arts business, why they’ve remained independent, how they built a team that now delivers without them, what they’ve learned from opening new classes and holiday camps, and why honest parent feedback plays such a big part in what they do next.

👉 Watch Laura and Carly’s full finalist interview here.

Laura Davitt and Carly Pryke are finalists for Strategic Partnership of the Year, sponsored by Bex Howe from Howe to Consultancy, and Children’s Activity Provider of the Year, sponsored by Thrive4Activities, at The Class Business Awards 2026.

And if you’re reading this thinking about your own next stage of growth, whether that’s your first member of staff, another venue, a new partnership, a holiday camp, a franchise model or simply finally getting yourself out of every single class, then come and have those conversations with us on Saturday 10 October.

At The Class Business Live, we’re bringing together class business owners, finalists, judges, sponsors and people who genuinely understand this sector for a full day of learning, mastermind conversations, big ideas and the kind of connections that can completely change what you do next.

If you want fresh ideas, honest conversations, brilliant people around you and a VERY good reason to get dressed up and celebrate everything you’ve built, this is the day to be in the room.

👉 Book your ticket for The Class Business Live and The Class Business Awards and come and be part of it.