Nursery management software, as the name implies, is software designed to help you manage your nursery. It does so through:
Child development tracking and observations: Following the EYFS or your nation’s learning and development structure for every child, logging observations and milestones against the child’s profile
Nursery administration and operations: Funnelling new enquiries into booked parents, and logging everything required of your education inspectorate including safeguarding procedures and staffing records
Billing, finance and funding: Ensuring your business stays in the black through automated billing, financial forecasts and the all-important childcare funding processes
Parent communication: Keeping parents on-side and involved in their children’s childcare lives through shared images, observations and nursery goings-on via email, app and platform
Let’s go into each of those in more detail so you can be confident you’re making the right move integrating nursery software into your setting.
Nursery management software features
Child development tracking and observations
Tracking children’s development is one of the most important elements of being an early years educator, second only perhaps to safeguarding. Knowing where a child is, or what they’re developing towards, is key to their leaving a setting ready for life beyond.
In the past we’ve referred to this as ‘school ready’, but really it’s preparation for the next step in the child’s life journey with school and the rest.
For many settings, this is still managed with paper logs, and that’s where nursery management software comes in. By moving this tracking from paper and spreadsheets to a single digital system, it’s much easier to report, flag and spot those children who aren’t progressing as one might expect and need an extra focus.
With observations, there are lots of different kinds, but the theme running through all of them, and what makes them an ‘observation’, is “what next?”. On paper, this might be hard to follow. On nursery management software, it’s a doddle.
Nursery administration and operations
The business part of nursery management, administration and operations is day-to-day running outside of just ‘looking after children’. How many staff have you got, when are they available, who’s qualified to do what, the all-important ratios. Risk assessments, enquiry management, CPD records, occupancy, room moves, starters and leavers – there are an awful lot of moving parts involved in running a setting. And the bigger you get, the harder it becomes to manage manually.
Spreadsheets can take up some of the load, but these can become very bloated and slow the longer they go on. And speaking from experience, it’s also very easy to break fundamental elements of formulas, references and cell placements, ruining hours of work.
Nursery management software takes up even more of the administration and operations load, making admin a cinch with automations and links between elements built into the system. Enquiries that go straight to booking patterns, leave requests that go straight to payroll, and bookings that go straight to staff management.
A virtuous circle of operational efficiency, all in one place.
Billing, finance and childcare funding
While nursery administrations and operations might be the heart of running your nursery, billing, finance and funding are your bread and butter. Without a steady stream of money in, namely knowing when and how much, your setting can’t stay afloat.
There are loads of pieces of software to help with this, but often they’re covering different elements of the revenue stream. One for staff, one for parents, possibly another to cover the emails for each, Tax-Free Childcare accounts being their own kettle of fish.
Get yourself one that does it all – and wouldn’t you know it, Ovivio does. Invoices straight to parents, mobile payments, custom funding packages, instant Tax-Free Childcare account reconciliation: the list goes on.
Including the first, free and possibly only nursery funding calculator designed exclusively for nurseries, which you can try right now.
Parent Communication
Keeping the parents of your nursery children on your side is a must, so easy-to-use parent communication tools are a must-have. It doesn’t need to be 24/7 availability, but activity logging, photo sharing and messaging are key to happy parents and fewer complaints.
Consider the child that comes home covered in mud. The parent might initially be fuming at the clean-up operation. But should they see a picture of their little one playing in the mud kitchen – perhaps coupled with a developmental milestone observation – a lot of their irritation will evaporate.
On the nursery side, having a method to remind parents about sun cream, water bottles, changes of clothes, saves you a lot of headache and shifts some responsibility back on the parents, as well it should be. With observations, seeing as you have to do them anyway for your inspectorate, why not give yourself a way to share them with parents for those ‘aw’ moments?
And if those parents can also pay their childcare invoices through that same phone app, well then it’s a win-win-win.
In summary
There are multiple elements of nursery management software, and the above list isn’t even exhaustive. Reports, business intelligence, multi-site features, file storage, medication forms, accident forms – the list goes on and on.
Getting nursery management software into your setting is certainly a considered purchase, so make sure you book a demo with those that catch your eye so you can see the software in action. A blog post or video can only tell you so much – you really have to see it to believe it.
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