As a daycare or school manager, you have several tasks you need to complete every day. These daily activities are necessary for running a productive daycare; however, they can be demanding, and you might need help keeping up with them.
Childcare software is designed to make your duties as a school or daycare administrator easier. It helps with admissions, invoices, payments, reporting, attendance, parent-child communications, scheduling, etc. The software automates these everyday jobs.
For instance, having an effective childcare tool reduces your administrative responsibilities. The software system also improves communication between you and your wards’ parents.
When choosing a childcare software, pick one that meets your unique needs. Also, it should be economical and inexpensive.
To help make the choice easier, this article provides you with the eight best childcare tools for your daycare or school.
Eight best tools for school and daycare managers
Schools and daycares require a lot of attention and management. So, these eight best tools will help you manage your school or daycare effectively in 2022.
Brightwheel is the complete childcare management solution for daycare and school managers. It is an easy-to-use website and app that helps you, as a manager save time on activities, retain your staff, and get your payments on time.
As one of the best software for child management, Brightwheel helps you manage your classrooms by streamlining your day. Also, you can easily supervise attendance, reduce paperwork, and capture learning milestones. It helps you meet licensing requirements and automate your invoicing and bill payments.
Engaging with the families of the kids is crucial as a manager of a daycare or school. With Brightwheel, you can easily keep parents or guardians up to date about their kids using photos, videos, messaging, etc.
Also, Brightwheel helps you to report and track mishaps that happen at your daycare or school throughout the day. This makes it easier for you to include it in the digital daily reports and help you avoid such issues next time.
The COVID-19 pandemic is still very much present, and as such, you need to keep the students and staff safe. So, Brightwheel ensures contactless check-ins and online payments, which minimizes the spread of the virus and germs.
This software allows you to conduct health checks by monitoring student and staff health. You can do this by using the app to log the temperatures of those at your school or daycare.
Pros
- It cuts down on time
- Brightwheel helps to grow your business
- It helps to save money
2. Illumine
Illumine is a childcare software loved and used by numerous schools worldwide. This is because it eliminates unnecessary work-related tasks and enhances efficiency. It also simplifies your billings and attendance processes, communicate with the parents, and carry out your assessments.
Also, Illumine helps you increase admissions into your daycare or school by helping you track and manage your leads. The app provides follow-up reminders that help you turn prospects into paying students.
When you digitize your childcare processes, you save a ton of money which you can use to develop your daycare or school. Additionally, this platform empowers your staff to be more precise, efficient, and faster in carrying out their duties. As a result, you and your team will cut down on the time spent on spreadsheets, replying to emails, and other management processes.
Finally, Illumine automates and manages billing and payments, sends invoices, and tracks all your income and expenses (school fees and salaries). You can also keep parents in the loop about their children’s activities.
Pros
- It helps to save time and money
- Increases your admissions
- Increase in staff productivity
- Helps with parent communication
3. HiMama
HiMama is a childcare app that allows open communication with your students’ families while also enabling contactless operation of your childcare center. This software will help you surpass whatever expectations your students’ parents have for your childcare center.
It allows you to send center-wide notices or cute videos about the children to their parents. You can do this through email, text, or in-app messages.
Also, this platform allows you to create beautiful portfolios that record the children’s development over time. For example, you can record the milestones and development of each child from their first day in daycare till they graduate. This allows you and the parents to follow a child’s journey through school.
Pros
- Allows for contactless check-ins
- Smooth communication between the parents and school management
- Provides comprehensive classroom management
4. Kangarootime
Kangarootime is a childcare software designed to improve your business and allow you to focus on what matters most in your daycare center: the children. This platform has features that are thoughtfully designed to help your childcare center or school to succeed.
Also, if you happen to have more than one center, this software allows for easy connectivity and communication between your centers. Kangarootime lets you view the data from the different centers, making it easy to make informed decisions to improve your business.
This childcare software has a beautiful interface and is easy to use. Lastly, it allows you to connect with your staff, parents, and administrators in one place simultaneously.
Pros
- Excellent connectivity across your centers
- It is easy to use
- Kangarootime has adept features to help your childcare center thrive
5. Procare
Procare helps you stay connected so you can effectively oversee your school or daycare. This software has features that enable contactless check-in/out and integrated tuition collection. It also provides business management tools for before and after-school programs.
This parent engagement app allows you to stay connected with your student’s parents. When you walk parents through their children’s day-to-day activities, it will instill trust in them.
Managing your classroom becomes easier when you use Procare. For instance, you can track attendance and any room movement. Also, you can ensure strict adherence to the teacher/child ratios in each classroom.
Pros
- Easy communication with parents
- Ability to track in-class activities and milestones
- Easy payment processing
6. LifeCubby
LifeCubby is a user-friendly childcare management software designed for center owners (and managers) by a daycare center owner. It provides solutions that make running your childcare center seamless.
This management software is efficient and makes life simpler for everyone — center directors, owners, teachers, and families. Also, the app creator understands that in running a thriving childcare center, you have needs; this tool attends to those needs.
LifeCubby helps daycare and school managers to increase their profit, improve teacher and parent happiness, and upgrade the center’s efficiency. You can also supervise all the crucial parts of the center through one convenient interface.
Pros
- Ability to track meals, diaper changes, naps, etc.
- Improved parent engagement
- LifeCubby helps to increase profit
7. Storypark
Storypark is a leading family communication and engagement app used by more than 11,000 early childhood daycare centers worldwide. This software helps you enhance your classroom practices by empowering the educators who work in your school.
Also, this tool makes it easier for you and the employees in your early childhood program to stay connected with the families. This will ensure that crucial information about their children and the school is at their fingertips.
You can use templates to keep your compliance records in one easy-to-access platform. Thankfully, you have the flexibility to create your templates if the existing ones are not to your taste. Storypark helps you manage cleaning checklists, menus, weekly lesson plans, infant daily sheets, and so much more. Also, you can create and share documents that align with your philosophy and curriculum with families. This will allow parents to understand better the learning you provide to their children in the classroom.
Pros
- It is easy to use and simple to implement
- Storypark is private and secure
- Provides flexible and affordable pricing
8. Sandbox
Sandbox is your all-in-one childcare software that allows you to manage your daycare, engage the parents, and grow your business in one place. This platform helps thousands of daycare owners and educators to simplify their tasks, and you can become one of them.
Sandbox reduces the time you spend on paperwork so, you can spend more time in the classroom with the kids. In addition, Sandbox lets you go paperless with electronic attendance; that is, you can easily track each child’s attendance and your staff’s hours with this platform.
You can also manage the children and staff’s information with organized profiles. This helps you find any data about a child or employee without hassles. Finally, Sandbox has a customer support team that will walk you through the art of childcare management and how to get the most of the tool.
Pros
- It is user-friendly and intuitive
- The software helps with attendance tracking
- An award-winning customer support team
Conclusion
Indeed, managing a daycare center or school is no easy feat. However, when you use tools like the ones mentioned in this article, the otherwise daunting task becomes less problematic.
These tools help with billings and payments, managing the classroom, communicating with parents, and so much more. So, if you do not have childcare software, get one today.
Author Bio:
Lydia Iseh is a writer with years of experience in writing SEO content that provides value to the reader. As someone who believes in the power of SEO to transform businesses, she enjoys being part of the process that helps websites rank high on search engines.