How nurseries are keeping track of their toddlers

Misty Ardouin set up her nursery, Nestlings, in Cardiff city center in 2019. At the end of each day, they would ‘sit nice’ in the games room with the parents to catch up on everything the kids had been up to. children.

“It was an integral part of our day,” says Ms. Ardouin.

“Establishing relationships and bonding with parents helped us get to know the children better. It meant that we worked in sync, with the same ideas for the care and education of children both in the nursery and at home.”

But the pandemic changed everything. In March 2020, the government ordered the closure of day care centers for all except the children of key workers and vulnerable children. As of March 2021, more than 3,300 child care groups had closed their doors permanently.

In the settings that eventually reopened, parents were no longer allowed to stay inside to stay and chat, or mingle outside with other parents and children; they were cut off from their children’s daycare experience.

The Chicks, like many nurseries, turned to technology to maintain communication. He uses Blossom software, which allows his staff to share children’s diaries. Everything from diapers and lunch to big moments like first words can be shared with parents.

Staff plan “next steps” for each child, and parents can access this information to continue their child’s learning at home. It can also handle more mundane tasks like sending invoices for fees.

“We had to quickly think about what we could do to keep relationships strong,” says Ms. Ardouin.

“Parents can check on their little one at any time. This is very positive, as the parents were not, and still cannot enter the environment.”

Sara Thakrar, co-founder of Blossom, says that parents have been driving the rise of daycare technology.

“There’s been a huge increase in day care centers moving away from paper. Parents want information at their fingertips. They want to know what their child is doing in real time. They want instant feedback.”

Caroline Humphreys’s son Joe attends a nursery school in Walthamstow, London, which uses Famly, a Danish software application.

“I’ve never actually been inside the nursery. Our experience of his inner life in the nursery is through the photos on the app and apart from that talking to the nursery staff when dropping him off and picking him up,” she says. her.

“We had a massive boom during 2020,” says Matt Arnerich, director of communications at Famly, “and we took on 1,300 setups in the last year alone.”

A survey by Tapestry, another widely used app, suggested that a third of early years providers now use video to communicate with parents, compared to just 9% before 2020, and use of printed charts is down nearly to the half.

More than 75% of the agreed use of technology has helped overcome barriers to engaging with families during the pandemic.

The demand for early education in the UK is high. According to the Department for Education, in 2021 there were around 1.5 million childcare places available in England, 75% of which were reserved.

Anna and David Wright opened their nursery, Paint Pots, from their home in Southampton in 1993, initially caring for just a dozen children.

By 2000, demand had outgrown their home and they moved Paint Pots to a separate building. They now run three preschools and six daycare centers, serving almost 1,000 children a week.

“We used to rely on paper records, but it became impossible to keep track of details, records and administrative tasks,” says Mr. Wright. So the nursery now uses the online learning journal, Tapestry.

“The technology frees up our team members from the time they spend keeping those manual records, giving them more time to spend with the kids,” he adds.

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Tapestry co-founder Dr Helen Edwards previously spent “hours and hours” on paperwork for her own nursery in East Sussex. In 2012, her husband Steve came up with the idea for Tapestry.

“It grew very fast. We now have around 18,000 accounts in 40 countries and look after the diaries of more than a million children,” he says.

Staff want to spend as much time with the kids as possible, and technology helps them do that, he says.

“In addition, both parents can access the diary, useful when parents are apart,” she adds, and access can also be given to outside professionals, such as speech and language therapists or home care visitors.

“Everyone can work together to support the child,” says Dr. Edwards.

But not everyone feels that increased use of technology is a positive step forward.

“We can become too reliant on apps and technology, especially when it comes to kids,” says Alex Mills, a parent. “I don’t want my little boy to have people constantly taking pictures of him. The first priority should be the attention he gets.”

Mrs. Mills’ two-year-old son, Max, attends a local daycare that doesn’t use communication technology. Instead, staff talk to the parents and provide them with a sheet of paper detailing what the child has eaten, diaper changes and sleep.

“I would rather they were taking care of my son than being distracted updating an app all day. It’s a very modern phenomenon, the need to feel connected all the time.”

Sharon Birch is the owner of Footprints Learning for Life nursery in Hartlepool. The nursery was rated Outstanding by Ofsted and has won a number of awards, most recently for inclusive practice, but does not use apps.

“Technology is everywhere, in our offices, homes and in the hands of most people. The world is saturated with technology,” says Ms. Birch.

She says that parents like the fact that they do things the old-fashioned way.

“We talk to our parents. A key worker needs to get to know their key children as if they were their own: their likes, dislikes, what makes them. Those bonds are very important for trust and protection, to understand them and help them reach their milestones.” An app can’t do that.”

The first five years of a child’s life are critical. Research shows that early development in early childhood has a direct impact on behavior, social skills, and lifelong learning. And parental involvement with preschool children has been linked to better language and literacy development, and school readiness.

The last 18 months of the pandemic have been very challenging, but according to the social enterprise Parent Zone, technology had a very positive impact during 2020, with 77% of parents agreeing that connected technology helped them cope .

“When I opened Nestlings Nursery,” says Ms Ardouin, “I wasn’t really interested in technology. Welcoming families and spending quality time with them was very important.”

But now he feels that “technology allows us to connect, ensuring that those important relationships continue.”