Hi, my name is Sara, Founder of Blossom Educational, an all-in-one software that provides nurseries with better business intelligence, enhanced parental communication and a thorough understanding of their children. Read about why my co-founders and I started Blossom in 2015…
Sam, Daniel, Ash and I got together in late 2014 after a very random conversation about who works after 8pm.
Daniel, having been developing software for years, said he did. Sam and Ash being in management consultancy and finance also said they did. I then raised my hand and said I did too…. The look on their faces. Priceless.
After all, all I did was work in and manage a nursery. Their immediate reaction was to ask: “You take care of and play with children, why would you be working late?”.
This is where our market research began to find a way to stop paper reporting and communication which required an unnecessary amount of time and resources. We wondered how much valuable time was actually being taken away from the children and other important tasks.
We decided to embark on a journey to create the right nursery software that helps to solve the real challenges nurseries face. Something that was comprehensive, but simple. Supportive, and child-focused. Created for nurseries, by sector experts.
Having to log all of the daily activities of my children, writing observations and completing regular reports made me feel like I was always behind with my paperwork. Most importantly, I wasn’t able to spend enough time with my children!
We created Blossom to massively reduce the time spent on paperwork.
You can log day-to-day information, observations and children’s learning quickly and easily – including linking it to different frameworks. For example, the EYFS Development Matters, Characteristics of Effective Learning and Montessori.
We used to struggle to easily keep track of our children’s and staffing requirements. With Blossom you can make sure you are never over or under capacity.
Accurate occupancy reporting means you can plan and make decisions from the data you need faster and more effectively.
Need to know if you have space for a new child? You can throw away those Post-its and view your future free spaces with ease.
Cohort tracking has become one of the most challenging areas for nursery managers – it takes an average-sized nursery approximately 30 hours a term.
With Blossom’s child development tools, data is instantly accessible. It is automatically pulled together into comprehensive and easy-to-read reports at the click of a button.
At any point, you can view different reports about the progress of groups of children.
Under the new inspection framework 2019, data is not going to be a focus for nurseries with Ofsted. However, having the data available at your fingertips will allow staff to better understand their key children’s learning and development.
Practitioners can’t always find the time to give a comprehensive breakdown of each child’s day to parents when they pick up and drop off their child to nursery.
Blossom enhances the communication between parent and practitioner and makes conversations more targeted.
Give parents peace of mind and ensure they are always kept engaged by sending instant updates about their children’s development, especially with our special ‘golden moments’ feature!
It used to take me a whole week to do the daunting task of creating, sending and reconciling payments for all of the invoices every month.
It was also easy to miss the billing deadline which would impact the entire organisation due to keeping on top of ratios for anything unforeseen.
Blossom takes significantly less time.
Using the information already inputted into the software, invoices can be generated and sent in bulk. From these invoices you can access the financial reporting and insights you need to grow your nursery business.
When running a nursery efficiently the operational costs can really start to pile up. Going digital reduced costs across the nursery – from the time it took managers to track, log, report and carry out action plans to purchasing stationary and printing paperwork.
Nurseries currently using Blossom have reported savings of over £6,500 per site.
If you would like find out more about Blossom, click here or email hello@blossomeducational.com.
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